NORWICH, England, Jan. 17 (AP) — Daisy Ashford, who wrote a best‐seller when she was 9 years old, died at the home of a daughter during the weekend, She was 90 years old and had given up her writing career when she was 13.

Her book, “The Young Visit ors,” has sold more than half a million copies and is still in print. The author bought a farm on the proceeds and once ob served, “I like fresh air — and royalties.”

“The Young Visiters” is a story of Victorian society as seen from the nursery. During World War I, when Miss Ash ford was in her 30's, a friend sent the manuscript to Frank Swinnerton, the literary crit ic and author, who was then working as a reader for a pub lishing house.

Mr. Swinnerton persuaded Sir James M. Barrie to write the preface, and the book was published in 1919. Later, Mr. Swinnerton remembered Miss Ashford as “a gentle little thing, very shy, giggling and tremendously excited at the thought of being published.”