author
Mary Martha Sherwood
1775–1851
A hugely popular English writer of children’s books, she published more than 400 works and helped shape early 19th-century moral and religious fiction for young readers. Her best-known books include The History of Little Henry and his Bearer and The History of the Fairchild Family.
6 Audiobooks
Shanty the Blacksmith; a Tale of Other Times
by Mary Martha Sherwood
Brotherly Love Shewing That as Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon
by Mary Martha Sherwood, Sophia Kelly
The Fairchild Family
by Mary Martha Sherwood
The Wishing Cap
by Mary Martha Sherwood
Soffrona and Her Cat Muff
by Mary Martha Sherwood
The Young Lord, and Other Tales; to which is added Victorine Durocher
by Mrs. Newton Crosland, Mary Martha Sherwood
About the author
Born Mary Martha Butt in Worcestershire in 1775, she grew up in a clerical family and later married Henry Sherwood, an army officer. She spent part of her life in India, an experience that fed into her writing and charitable work, and she went on to become one of the most widely read children’s authors of her time.
Sherwood wrote with remarkable energy, producing stories, tracts, articles, and educational works across a long career. Her fiction was strongly shaped by evangelical Christianity, especially in her earlier books, and often focused on moral choice, family life, and religious instruction.
Today she is remembered both for her popularity and for her influence on children’s literature in Britain. The History of Little Henry and his Bearer, The History of Henry Milner, and The History of the Fairchild Family remain the works most closely associated with her name.