Elizabeth Dilys Powell CBE (20 July 1901 – 3 June 1995) was a British film critic and travel writer who contributed to The Sunday Times for more than 50 years.

She attended Talbot Heath School, Bournemouth before winning an exhibition[1] to read Modern Languages at Somerville College, Oxford.

"'[3] Powell took his advice, but later regretted it, feeling that she had been robbed of "deep and solid pleasures", having "small Latin...and, goodness knows, less Greek".

While studying at Oxford, she made news headlines in the Daily Mail after being "taken out for tea" and climbing over the wall to go out with Payne; she was rusticated for two terms and the principal accused her of "dragging the name of Somerville in the dust".

[2] After graduation, Powell spent a period as personal assistant to Lady Ottoline Morrell before joining the literary department of The Sunday Times in 1928.

In 1941, she found war work with a Greek connection in the Political Warfare Executive, which oversaw Britain's propaganda in occupied Europe; she remained there until 1945,[7] where she was tasked with making sure that the BBC's broadcasts to Greece accurately represented British policies.

[9] Powell was one of the founding members of the Independent Television Authority (ITA) from 1954, despite initial concerns about her possible conflicts of interest (she wrote for a newspaper that was backing one of the ITV network franchises, but its bid was eventually withdrawn).

[8] She was the author of several books about the country, including Remember Greece (1941); An Affair of the Heart (1958), describing her repeated visits to the village of Perachora, site of Payne's excavations of the Heraion; and The Villa Ariadne (1973), a memoir of the archaeologists associated with the house built by Sir Arthur Evans near the palace of Knossos, including several (such as John Pendlebury) who were active in the Cretan Resistance during World War II.