Cicely Margaret Escott (9 July 1908 – 15 August 1977) was a New Zealand novelist, playwright, poet and drama teacher.

[1][3] Her first two novels were under the pen name C. M. Allen, and both were set in England: the first, Insolence of Office (1934) was about a talented lower-middle-class musician torn between her love for a violinist and her distaste for his decadent lifestyle, and the second, Awake at Noon (1935), was about a female doctor who advocates for exploited nurses and a labour leader who works for the unemployed.

[1][3] Escott had been reluctant to send Show Down to her agent because of its New Zealand setting, but after he requested unpublished work, she sent it through, and it was taken on by a London publisher.

[5] The Auckland Star said it was a "considerable achievement" and that "the author's imaginative insight and literary craftsmanship are such that Show Down will be judged abroad on its merits, and not as 'a New Zealand novel'".

[3][4] After the success of Show Down, Escott returned to New Zealand, where she worked on her brother's farm for a period and then moved to Auckland.

[9] Escott's final work, a volume of poetry titled Separation and/or Greeting, was written in the months prior to her death in 1977, at Waitemata Harbour in New Zealand.