Constance Beresford-Howe was born November 10, 1922 in Montreal, Quebec. She attended McGill University where she received her Bachelor of Arts in 1945 and her Masters of Arts in 1946. She married Christopher Presnell in 1960, and completed her Ph.D at Brown University in 1965. Constance began her teaching career at McGill in 1949. She left there in 1971 to come to Toronto and teach English at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute. She taught at Ryerson until 1987. Aside from teaching she has written 10 novels, her first in 1946 called The Unreasoning Heart and her last in 1991 called A Serious Widow. She has also written for several magazines. 1 of her books, "The Book of Eve", was adapted into a play called "Eve" that debuted at the Stratford Festival in 1976 with Jessica Tandy as the lead. It was made into a movie in 2002 called "The Book of Eve". CBC created a television adaptation of "A Population of One", and "The Marriage Bed" was made into a T.V. movie in 1986. Constance has also written a script for a T.V. movie called "The Cuckoo Bird" and acted in a movie called "Hugh MacLennan: Portrait of a Writer" as herself