author
E. Veale
A little-known children's writer from the late 19th century, remembered for lively fairy tales and Brownie stories illustrated by Palmer Cox. Her surviving books have a playful, old-fashioned charm that fits the golden age of illustrated children's publishing.
1 Audiobook
Busy Brownies
by E. Veale
About the author
Very little firmly documented biographical information about E. Veale seems to survive, and even basic personal details are hard to confirm. What can be confirmed is that she was active in the late 19th century and wrote children's stories that were published in the 1890s.
Her best-known work today is Busy Brownies (1896), and period editions described her as "the Fairy Tale Authoress." Her stories were paired with illustrations by Palmer Cox, the creator of the Brownies, placing her work within the cheerful, imaginative world of children's fantasy and picture-story publishing of that era.
Other titles associated with her include The Brownies and Other Stories, The Birds Wedding, The First Trousers, and The Christmas Pudding and Other Brownie Stories. Because so little about her life is clearly recorded, E. Veale is known mainly through these surviving books rather than through a detailed personal biography.