Beth Ellis

Born Elizabeth Ellis in 1874 in Wigan, near Manchester, she was the daughter of a prominent solicitor and studied English literature at Oxford at a time when women were not yet allowed to take degrees there. She wrote under the name Beth Ellis, and in American editions some of her books appeared as Elizabeth Ellis.

Her first book, An English Girl's First Impressions of Burmah (1899), drew on a six-month stay in what is now Myanmar and became the work she is most remembered for. She went on to publish six novels and a short-story collection, many of them historical romances, and contemporary reviewers often praised the energy, cheerfulness, and period detail in her fiction.

She married Godfrey Baker in 1908 but continued publishing under her maiden name. Ellis died in childbirth in Berkhamsted on August 2, 1913, leaving behind a compact body of work that mixes humor, travel writing, and adventurous historical storytelling.