Author. Holtby was born in Rudston, a village in the rural part of East Yorkshire that would serve as a setting for much of her fiction. She joined the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps during World War I and later studied at Oxford, where she met future author Vera Brittain; the early years of their friendship were chronicled in Brittain's famous memoir, "Testament of Youth" (1933). Moving to London with Brittain in 1921, Holtby soon established herself as a top-notch journalist and by the age of 28 was on the board of directors for the influential weekly journal "Time and Tide." In 1931 she was diagnosed with chronic nephritis (invariably fatal at that time), but she refused to let this slow down her activities. A vigorous advocate for liberal causes, Holtby lectured throughout Europe on behalf of the League of Nations and became a staunch opponent of apartheid after a trip to South Africa. Her death at 37 came just as she was gaining recognition for her literary efforts. Holtby was buried at All Saints Churchyard in Rudston, just a stone's throw from the house where she was born. In all she wrote 14 books, including six novels; two volumes of short stories; the first critical study of Virginia Woolf (1932); and "Women and a Changing Civilization" (1934), a feminist survey with opinions that are still relevant today. But she is chiefly remembered for her long Yorkshire novel "South Riding". Completed shortly before her death, it was published in 1936 and immediately hailed as a classic. Holtby's posthumous reputation was solidified by Vera Brittain's biography "Testament of Friendship" (1940), and in the early 1980s all of Holtby's novels and a collection of her journalism were reprinted by Virago Press. From 1967 to 2003, England's Royal Society of Literature awarded the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize for "Best Regional Novel."