Recognition as a poet came late for Stevie Smith (1902–1971), whose real name was Florence Margaret Smith. Born in Yorkshire, she lived nearly all her life with an elderly aunt in a London suburb. She led a quiet life, and her wit appeared mainly in her poems and drawings. In 1923 she took a job as a secretary in a publishing firm and kept the same job for thirty years. However, for two brief periods, Stevie Smith was famous. In the 1930s, she became well known for her Novel on Yellow Paper (1936) and for some published poems. Then in the 1960s, after the publication of her collection of poems Not Waving but Drowning, Smith became a popular British radio personality and gained new recognition as a contemporary poet. Originality and a strong feminist outlook made her a popular figure in London, where she read and chanted her poems on stage. Smith was given the Gold Medal for Poetry in 1969 by Queen Elizabeth II. After her death, a play and a movie were produced about her career.