author
Lucy Aikin
1781–1864
An English writer with a gift for bringing history to life, she became known for lively accounts of the courts of Elizabeth I and James I. She also wrote poetry, biography, children’s books, and a large body of letters.
5 Audiobooks
Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth
by Lucy Aikin
The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable
by John Bunyan, Lucy Aikin
Robinson Crusoe — in Words of One Syllable
by Daniel Defoe, Lucy Aikin
The Swiss Family Robinson, Told in Words of One Syllable
by Lucy Aikin, Johann David Wyss
Æsop's fables in words of one syllable
by Lucy Aikin, Aesop
About the author
Born in Warrington, England, in 1781, Lucy Aikin grew up in a remarkably literary family. Her father was the writer and physician John Aikin, and her aunt was Anna Laetitia Barbauld, which placed her in a world of books, ideas, and reform-minded conversation from an early age.
Over a long career, she wrote across many forms, including poetry, fiction, children’s literature, biography, and history. She is especially remembered for Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth and Memoirs of the Court of James I, works that helped make her reputation as a historical writer, and she also published under the name Mary Godolphin.
Aikin spent much of her later life in Hampstead and continued writing well into the nineteenth century. Today she stands out as a versatile voice in English letters whose work joined storytelling, scholarship, and a strong interest in the people behind history.