Elizabeth Anna Hart
Elizabeth Anna Hart, author of The Runaway
Elizabeth Anna Hart (1822-90) was born in London. Her father was a clergyman, critic and poet; her aunt was grandmother to Lewis Carroll. She married an officer in the Indian Army but had no children. Together she and her sister, Menella Bute Smedley, wrote books of poetry for children; Elizabeth also wrote novels for adults, the best known of which is Mrs Jerningham’s Journal. The Runaway was written in 1872; in 1936 it was reissued with especially commissioned woodcuts by the well-known painter and book-illustrator Gwen Raverat (1885-1957).