Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Flora Annie Steel
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Standard Name: Steel, Flora Annie
Birth Name: Flora Annie Webster
Married Name: Flora Annie Steel
Publishing from the 1880s through the first three decades of the twentieth century, FAS
produced some thirty books. Most of her novels describe contemporary Anglo-Indian life, though some are set in Britain (seldom in England) and five are historical novels about India (four of those being about the relatively distant time of the Mughal emperors, and one of them called by its author a biography). Of about eighty-five short stories collected in her successive volumes of short fiction, a number present, with imaginative sympathy, virtually every facet of Indian life,
Steel, Flora Annie. “Introduction”. The Best Short Stories of Flora Annie Steel, edited by Saros Cowasjee et al., Indus, p. i - xvi.
vii
often unmediated by any western presence. She also published history, a pamphlet on women's rights, and a vivid if impressionistic autobiography. FAS
's India is that of the British Raj, a place where sharply distinct cultures remain essentially unaffected by close contact, often erotic, between members of different races and religions. FAS has nothing but scorn for Anglos who cannot adapt to India, but also deep anxieties for Indians adapting to western ways.
Watts, Marjorie, and Frances King. Mrs. Sappho. Duckworth.
16
Family and Intimate relationships
Laurence Hope
She was said to be twenty-three when she married Nicolson, who was then forty-six. Her new husband always called her Violet. He was an accomplished linguist, proficient in Baluchi, Persian, Pashto, and Brahui, was...
Anthologization
Violet Fane
In 1901 her poetry was included (with that of others, including Flora Annie Steel
, specifically mentioned in the subtitle) in The Passing of Victoria
; the Poets' Tribute, edited by John Alexander Hammerton
.