L. Allen (Lizzie Allen) Harker

Born Lizzie Watson in Gloucester in 1863, she was educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College and wrote under the name L. Allen Harker. She published short stories before building a career as a novelist, and reference sources remember her as a notable writer of Edwardian fiction.

Her books often drew on everyday relationships and country settings, and several of them remain accessible through major public-domain archives. Among her best-known works is Marigold, a play written with Francis R. Pryor that later had a life beyond the theater in screen and radio adaptations.

She married James Allen Harker, a professor at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester, and continued to be associated with Cirencester for the rest of her life. She died on April 14, 1933.