Born in London to a socialist family of Irish extraction, Ethel Mannin (1900-1984) was a British novelist, travel writer, and political activist in the twentieth century. Beginning her career as a copywriter and editor in the twenties, Mannin also became an anarcho-syndicalist and was active in anti-imperialist causes in Africa throughout the 1930s. She produced seven autobiographical works and fourteen travelogues, detailing her time in Germany, India, Japan, Morocco, Burma, Egypt, Jordan, and Italy, in addition to nearly eighty novels and several children’s books.

Mannin married twice, one a short-lived marriage in 1919 which produced one daughter, the other to Quaker writer Reginald Reynolds (1905 - 1958) in 1938. She remained with Reynolds until his premature death in 1958. She made her home at Oak Cottage, Burghley Road, Wimbledon from 1929 to 1974, then relocated to Teignmouth in Devon to live near her daughter. Her 1977 memoir, Sunset Over Dartmoor was based on her time in Devon. Ethel Mannin died of pneumonia and heart failure at Teignmouth Hospital, on 5th December 1984.