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Dora Jessie Saint MBE née Shafe (born 17 April 1913), best known by the pen name Miss Read, is an English novelist, by profession a schoolmistress. Her pseudonym is derived from her mother's maiden name. She began writing for several journals after World War II and worked as a scriptwriter for the BBC.

Saint wrote a series of novels from 1955 to 1996. Her work centred on two fictional English villages, Fairacre and Thrush Green. The principal character in the Fairacre books, Miss Read, is an unmarried schoolteacher in a small village school, an acerbic and yet compassionate observer of village life. Saint's novels are wry regional social comedies, laced with gentle humour and subtle social commentary. She is also a keen observer of nature and the changing seasons. Saint and her husbard, Douglas, now deceased, married in 1940. The couple had one child, a daughter named Jill.

Her most direct influence is Jane Austen, although her work also bears similarities to the social comedies of manners written in the 1920s and 1930s, and in particular the work of Barbara Pym. Miss Read's work has in turn influenced a number of writers, including American writer Jan Karon. The musician Enya has a track on her Watermark album named after Saint's book Miss Clare Remembers, and one on her Shepherd Moons album titled No Holly for Miss Quinn.

Saint retired in 1996. In 1998, she was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for her services to literature. She lives in Berkshire.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Miss Read", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0