Mary Martha Sherwood

MMSwrote and signed more than 350 books (mostly for children, but including several adult novels), and left almost a score of fat volumes of diary. Some of her children's books, despite their uncompromisingly hell-fire message, remained current for several generations and were vividly remembered by many impressionable children, some of whom grew up to be writers. Her former high repute as a children's writer is at least as well deserved for her autobiography and diary, and her biographer Naomi Royde-Smith seriously admired some of her novels. She also wrote poems. The British Library lacks many of her books; the holdings of Cambridge University Library and the Bodleian are better.