Hesba Stretton

Born Sarah Smith in Wellington, Shropshire, in 1832, she wrote under the name Hesba Stretton and became one of the most widely read religious writers for children in Victorian England. Before turning fully to books, she worked as a journalist, and her early fiction appeared in Household Words, the magazine edited by Charles Dickens.

Her stories often focused on poor and vulnerable children, bringing together evangelical faith, domestic drama, and sharp sympathy for hardship. That combination made her especially successful with family readers, and Jessica's First Prayer was said to have sold in the millions by the late 19th century.

She died in 1911, but her work still offers a vivid window into Victorian ideas about childhood, charity, and belief. Even now, her best books are remembered for their emotional pull and their deep concern for children living at the edges of society.