Elizabeth Kirby (1823–1873)

Elizabeth Kirby and her older sister Mary Kirby, later Gregg (1817-1893) were born and educated in Leicester, England. After the death of their father in 1848, they were forced earn their own living. They did this by writing and illustrating numerous natural science books and fiction together over a period of 25 years. Elizabeth displayed a faculty for storytelling at an early age and in 1854 she published her first story, "The Discontented Children," which she had frequently told to small audiences. She moved to Norwich in 1855, and after Mary married the Rev. Henry Gregg, the rector of Brooksby in rural Leicestershire, she shared their home for the rest of her life. The two sisters wrote 24 books, some of them consisting of multiple volumes, beginning with Plants of Land and Water (1857) and including The Italian Goldsmiths, a Story of Cellini (1861), The Sea and Its Wonders (1871), Chapters on Trees (1873), and Hummingbirds (1874). The sisters also published a number of serial tales, including "The Desboroughs" and "Deepdale Vicarage," in various magazines. Each sister also published works independently.