She was born Hilda Winifred Maizels in
Whitechapel, London in 1896. Her father, Joseph Maizels, was a Jewish jeweller and silversmith who had immigrated to England from
Kalisz, Poland; he married her mother, Deborah Lipman, in London in 1893. Lewis originally worked as a teacher, but started writing when she moved to
Nottingham in the 1920s. Most of her works were historical novels, some of which, such as
I Am Mary Tudor (1972), received critical attention. Her young adult historical novel
The Gentle Falcon, was adapted for television. She also wrote a noted
children's book,
The Ship that Flew (1939) which concerns
Norse mythology and
time travel. The 1946 novel
The Day is Ours about a young deaf girl was the basis of the film
Mandy. The novel in turn was inspired by the work of her husband Professor M. Michael Lewis who was a specialist in the education of the deaf at the
University of Nottingham. Most of Lewis's works are out of print; however, a number are available either in print or as e-books.
The Ship that Flew was republished in the Oxford Children's Modern Classics series in 1998. Four of her young adult novels,
Harold Was My King,
Here Comes Harry,
The Ship That Flew and
The Gentle Falcon are available as ebooks from Beebliome Books.{{cite web == Selected works ==