Frances Vernon was a British novelist. She wrote her first novel Privileged Children (1982) at the age of sixteen. It won the Author's Club First Novel Award

Author's Club First Novel Award

Authors' Club Best First Novel Award is awarded by the Authors' Club to the most promising first novel of the year, written by a British author and published in the UK during the calendar year preceding the year in which the award is presented....

. She studied at New Hall, Cambridge

New Hall, Cambridge

Murray Edwards College is a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It was founded as "New Hall" in 1954, at a time when Cambridge had the lowest proportion of women undergraduates of any university in the United Kingdom, and when only two other colleges admitted women...

, but soon left to continue her writing. She produced five more novels: Gentlemen and Players (1984), A Desirable Husband (1987), The Bohemian Girl (1988), The Marquis of Westmarch (1989) and The Fall of Doctor Onslow

The Fall of Doctor Onslow

The Fall of Doctor Onslow is a novel by Frances Vernon, published in 1994. Many of its characters are loosely based on real people, sometimes with names changed.-Plot summary:...

 (1994). Her death, at the young age of twenty-seven, came soon after she had completed The Fall of Doctor Onslow

The Fall of Doctor Onslow

The Fall of Doctor Onslow is a novel by Frances Vernon, published in 1994. Many of its characters are loosely based on real people, sometimes with names changed.-Plot summary:...

.