Emily Sarah Holt

Emily Sarah Holt was an English novelist born in Bacup, Lancashire, on April 25, 1836. She came from a well-connected Lancashire family and is described in standard reference sources as having been educated privately in Oxford.

She wrote a large body of fiction in the later 19th century, mainly historical novels for children and young readers. Reference works consistently describe her books as strongly shaped by Protestant religious themes, and many of them are set in medieval, Reformation, or Tudor England.

Holt never married and died on December 25, 1893. Although she is not as widely remembered today as some of her contemporaries, she was a notably productive author whose stories helped introduce generations of readers to English history through fiction.