FRANK BAKER was born in Hornsey, London in 1908 and was educated at Winchester Cathedral School. A keen musician, Baker enjoyed singing in choir and playing the piano. After moving to Cornwall he made a living as an organist, earning £1 per week. There he wrote his first novel, The Twisted Tree (1935).
In 1939 his most successful novel, Miss Hargreaves, was published. It was consequently reprinted several times and was adapted for the stage in 1952 at the Royal Court Theatre Club in London, with Dame Margaret Rutherford in the leading role. The novel has also been adapted for the radio.
Baker then became a professional actor and toured during the Second World War. He later worked at the Old Vic and was an accompanist at the Players Theatre in London. After moving to Cardiff, Baker worked as a script editor and playwright for the BBC and continued to write more novels and several short stories. Over the course of his lifetime he published fifteen novels, including The Birds (1936), and three works of non-fiction, of which his final book was The Call of Cornwall (1976). He was also a contributor to the Guardian and the Radio Times.
Frank Baker died in 1983 at the family home in Cornwall.