Flora Annie Steel

She was born Flora Annie Webster at Sudbury Priory, Sudbury, Middlesex, the third child of George Webster. Her mother, Isabella MacCallum, was an heiress.{{rp|1}} In 1867 she married Henry William Steel, a member of the Indian Civil Service, and they lived in India until 1889,{{Cite book |author=Margaret MacMillan |title=Women of the Raj: The Mothers, Wives, and Daughters of the British Empire in India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5Xh4m4Ljrn4C&q=turki+woman+married+to&pg=PA245 |year=2007 |publisher=Random House Trade Paperbacks |isbn=978-0-8129-7639-7 |pages=245–}} chiefly in the Punjab, with which most of her books are connected.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} She grew deeply interested in native Indian life and began to urge educational reforms on the government of India. Mrs Steel herself became an Inspectress of Government and Aided Schools in the Punjab and also worked with John Lockwood Kipling, Rudyard Kipling's father, fostering Indian cooking.{{Cite wikisource |The Indian Biographical Dictionary (1915)/Steel, Mrs. Flora Annie}} 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.Orlando. [http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=steefl Retrieved 31 October 2015] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190924092920/http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=steefl |date=24 September 2019 }} Her biographers include Violet Powell{{Cite journal |last=Mannsaker |first=Frances M. |title=Flora Annie Steel, Novelist of India by Violet Powell |journal=Victorian Studies |date=Autumn 1982 |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages=105–106 |jstor=3827506}}{{Cite book |author=Violet Powell |title=Flora Annie Steel, Novelist of India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZUVbAAAAMAAJ |date=May 1981 |publisher=Heinemann|isbn=9780434599578 }} and Daya Patwardhan.{{Cite journal |last=Parry |first=Benita |title=A Star of India: Flora Annie Steel, Her Works and Times by Daya Patwardhan |journal=The Modern Language Review |date=April 1967 |volume=62 |issue=2 |pages=324–325 |doi=10.2307/3723865 |jstor=3723865}}{{Cite book |author=Daya Patwardhan |title=A Star of India: Flora Annie Steel, Her Works and Times |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wRVKAAAAMAAJ |year=1963 |publisher=Sole agents: A. V. Griha Prakashan, Poona}}

Flora 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 insight into native life and character.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} A year before leaving India, she co-authored and published The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook, which gave detailed directions to European women on all aspects of household management in India.

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

She also wrote a popular history of India.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} 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.{{Cite book |author=John F. Riddick |title=The History of British India: A Chronology |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Es6x4u_g19UC&pg=PA179 |date=1 January 2006 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-313-32280-8 |pages=179}} Among her other literary associates in India was Bithia Mary Croker.Douglas Sladen: "Lady Authors", in: Twenty Years of My Life (London: Constable, 1915), p. 120 ff.

File:STEEL(1894) Tales of the Punjab (15628450798).jpg

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• Wide Awake Stories (1884)
• From the Five Rivers (1893)
• Miss Stuart's Legacy (1893)
• Tales of the Punjab (1894)
• The Flower of Forgiveness (1894)
• The Potter's Thumb (1894)
• Red Rowans (1895)
• On the Face of the Waters (1896)
• In the Permanent Way, and Other Stories (1897)
• In the Tideway (1897)
• The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook (1888)
• The Hosts of the Lord (1900){{Cite journal |title=The Hosts of the Lord by Flora Annie Steel |journal=The Sewanee Review |date=January 1901 |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=101–102 |jstor=27528148}}
• Voices in the Night (1900)
• In the Guardianship of God (1903)
• A Book of Mortals (1905)
• India (1905)
• A Sovereign Remedy (1906){{Cite journal |last=Willcox |first=Louise Collier |title=A Sovereign Remedy by Flora Annie Steel |journal=The North American Review |date=April 19, 1907 |volume=184 |issue=613 |pages=861–863 |jstor=25105855}}
• A Prince of Dreamers (1908)
• India through the ages; a popular and picturesque history of Hindustan (1908)
• King-Errant (1912)
• The Adventures of Akbar (1913)
• The Mercy of the Lord (1914)
• Marmaduke (1917)
• Mistress of Men (1918)
• English Fairy Tales (1918)
• A Tale of Indian Heroes (1923)
• "Lâl"
• A Cookery Book
• Late Tales
• The Curse of Eve
• The Gift of the Gods
• The Law of the Threshold
• The Woman Question
• The Garden Of Fidelity: Being The Autobiography Of Flora Annie Steel 1847–1929{{cite web |url=http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/23rd-november-1929/39/flora-annie-steel |title=Flora Annie Steel |publisher=The Spectator Archive |date=23 November 1929 |access-date=28 November 2014 |author=Meston |pages=39}}

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{{Reflist|30em}}

• {{EB1911|wstitle=Steel, Flora Annie|volume=25|page=861}}

{{Sister project links |voy=no |wikt=no |v=no |n=no |b=no|author=no}}

{{Library resources box |by=yes |onlinebooksby=yes |viaf=211452326}}

• {{Gutenberg author |id=1973|name=Flora Annie Webster Steel}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Flora Annie Steel}}
• {{Librivox author |id=3527}}
• [https://www.greatwartheatre.org.uk/db/script/1875/ Play 'Grand-dad' by Steel on Great War Theatre]

{{Victorian children's literature}}

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Category:1847 births

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