Michael Fairless (1869–1901)

Margaret Fairless Barber was born in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the daughter of a solicitor and amateur archeologist. She wanted to do charitable work and nursing, but was prevented by her own ill-health. She was drawn to Roman Catholicism, and only began writing during the last two years of her life, when illness prevented her from more physically demanding pastimes. She used the pseudonym Michael Fairless and is best remembered for her immensely popular work of meditations, The Roadmender (1902), the last chapter of which she dictated on her deathbed to her friend and biographer, Mary Emily Dowson.