Naomi Ellington Jacob
JACOB, NAOMI ELLINGTON (Naomi Ellington Gray; 1889–1964), novelist of half-Jewish parentage whose varied career is reflected in a vast output of novels. She also wrote such autobiographical books as Me – In War-Time (1940). In her most ambitious work, The Gollantz Saga (1952), she portrayed the progressive assimilation of a Jewish family. Born in Ripon, Yorkshire, and originally a schoolteacher in Middlesbrough, she lost her job for wearing trousers; thereafter, she always wore men's clothes. In 1930 she moved to Italy, where she lived for the rest of her life.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
ODNB; P. Bailey, Three Queer Lives: An Alternative Biography of Fred Barnes, Naomi Jacob, and Arthur Marshall (2002); E. Hamer, Britannia's Glory: A History of Twentieth Century Lesbians (1996).
Sources: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2007 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.
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