Flora Annie Steel

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Flora Annie Steel
Flora Annie Steel.jpg
Flora Annie Steel, ca. 1903
Born (1847-04-02)2 April 1847
Sudbury, Middlesex, England[1]
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Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire, England[1]
Occupation Writer
Nationality English
Period 19th century
Genre History, Fiction, Children's Literature

Flora Annie Steel (2 April 1847 – 12 April 1929) was an English writer who was noted for writing books set in British India or otherwise connected to it.

Personal life

She was born Flora Annie Webster in Sudbury, Middlesex, the sixth child of George Webster.[1] In 1867, she married Henry William Steel, a member of the Indian Civil Service, and for the next twenty-two years lived in India (until 1889),[2] chiefly in the Punjab, with which most of her books are connected. She grew deeply interested in native Indian life and began to urge educational reforms on the government of India. Mrs Steel became an Inspectress of Government and Aided Schools in the Punjab and also worked with John Lockwood Kipling, Rudyard Kipling's father, to foster Indian arts and crafts.[3] When her husband's health was weak, Flora Annie Steel took over some of his responsibilities.

She died at her daughter's house in Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire on 12 April 1929.[4] Her biographers include Violet Powell[5][6] and Daya Patwardhan.[7][8]

Writing

Flora Annie Steel was interested in relating to all classes of Indian society. The birth of her daughter gave her a chance to interact with local women and learn their language. She encouraged the production of local handicrafts and collected folk-tales, a collection of which she published in 1894.

Her interest in schools and the education of women gave her a special insight into native life and character. A year before leaving India, she coauthored and published The Complete Indian Housekeeper, giving detailed directions to European women on all aspects of household management in India.

In 1889 the family moved back to Scotland, and she continued her writing there. Some of her best work, according to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, is contained in two collections of short stories, From the Five Rivers and Tales of the Punjab.

Her novel On the Face of the Waters (1896) describes incidents in the Indian Mutiny. She also wrote a popular history of India. John F. Riddick describes Steel's The Hosts of the Lord as one of the "three significant works" produced by Anglo-Indian writers on Indian missionaries, along with The Old Missionary (1895) by William Wilson Hunter and Idolatry (1909) by Alice Perrin.[9] Among her other literary associates in India was Bithia Mary Croker.[10]

Bibliography

Tales of the Punjab (1894) illustrated by John Lockwood Kipling

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References

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  3. Wikisource link to  The Indian Biographical Dictionary (1915)/Steel, Mrs. Flora Annie. Wikisource. 
  4. Orlando. Retrieved 31 October 2015
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  10. Douglas Sladen: "Lady Authors", in: Twenty Years of My Life (London: Constable, 1915), p. 120 ff.
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External links

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