E. Katherine (Emily Katherine) Bates

Born in Dover in 1846, Emily Katharine Bates was a British writer remembered for her work as a novelist, travel writer, and spiritualist author. Accounts of her life describe an early loss of both parents, and later years shaped by extensive travel.

Bates wrote across several genres, which helps explain her lasting interest for modern readers. Alongside novels, she published travel-based works and books tied to psychical and spiritualist investigation, including Seen and Unseen. Her writing reflects both the wide horizons of late Victorian travel and the era's fascination with psychic research.

She died in 1922. While she is not as widely known today as some of her contemporaries, her books still attract readers interested in women travelers, nineteenth-century popular writing, and the history of spiritualism.