Ellen Velvin

Born in 1862, Ellen Velvin was a British writer whose work centered on animals, especially the creatures she observed in zoos and in popular animal-training circles. A Victorian-era research database identifies her as the daughter of a Plymouth watchmaker and notes that she became a Fellow of the Zoological Society.

Her books include Rataplan, a Rogue Elephant, Behind the Scenes with Wild Animals, From Jungle to Zoo, and Portraits at the Zoo. Records from Project Gutenberg and The Online Books Page confirm that her writing ranged from animal stories for general readers to nonfiction-style works about wild creatures and captive animal life.

Some details of her life remain hard to trace, but available sources agree that she was active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and that she died in 1918. Her surviving work still stands out for its strong interest in animal character and behavior.