author
Henrietta Vaders
Best known today for the short Victorian-era work Wikkey, this elusive writer is remembered through a tender, moral story about poverty, kindness, and a sick child in need of care. Very little biographical information is easy to confirm, which gives the work an added air of mystery.
1 Audiobook
Wikkey A Scrap
by Henrietta Vaders
About the author
Henrietta Vaders is a little-documented author whose surviving reputation rests mainly on Wikkey: A Scrap. Project Gutenberg lists that title as her only work in its catalog, and the story has remained in circulation through public-domain editions.
From the book record and modern summaries of the text, Wikkey appears to be a late-19th-century novella centered on a poor crossing-sweeper boy and the compassion shown to him by a government clerk. The story blends sentiment, Christian feeling, and social concern, especially around childhood poverty, illness, and charity.
Because reliable biographical sources on Vaders are scarce, it is hard to say much more about her life with confidence. She remains one of those authors known less through a well-preserved personal history than through a single heartfelt book that has managed to outlast its era.