Frances Minto Dickinson Elliot

Born Frances Vickriss Dickinson in Berkshire in 1820, she later wrote under the name Frances Minto Elliot and also used the pseudonym "Florentia." She became known as a prolific English writer whose books focused mainly on the social history of France, Spain, and Italy, along with travel writing.

She also wrote fiction, including three novels, and contributed art criticism and society sketches to periodicals. Contemporary and later reference sources describe her as a vivid, sometimes gossipy writer, and that combination of travel, history, and personality helped give her work a distinctive voice.

Although she is less widely read now than in her own time, her books remain of interest for their energetic portraits of nineteenth-century European society and culture. She died in 1898.