author
Baron Edward Hugessen Knatchbull-Hugessen Brabourne
1829–1893
A Victorian statesman with a lasting taste for the fantastical, he balanced a long political career with writing fairy tales and imaginative stories for children. His books helped give fantasy a place in mainstream nineteenth-century family reading.
2 Audiobooks
Uncle Joe's Stories
by Baron Edward Hugessen Knatchbull-Hugessen Brabourne
River Legends; Or, Father Thames and Father Rhine
by Baron Edward Hugessen Knatchbull-Hugessen Brabourne
About the author
Born in Kent on 29 April 1829, Edward Hugessen Knatchbull-Hugessen—later the 1st Baron Brabourne—was a British politician who spent many years in public life, serving as an MP and holding junior ministerial posts in the Home Office and Colonial Office. He was raised in a well-connected family and was related through his mother to the wider Austen family circle.
Alongside politics, he became a notably prolific writer of fairy tales and fantasy for young readers, usually publishing as E. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen. Collections such as Stories for My Children and Tales at Tea-Time made him a familiar Victorian name in children's literature, even if he is less widely read today.
He was created Baron Brabourne in 1880 and died on 6 February 1893. What makes him memorable now is that unusual double life: a working politician who also wrote whimsical, otherworldly stories full of fairies, strange adventures, and playful imagination.