author

May Kendall

b. 1861

An English poet, novelist, and satirist who mixed dreamlike imagination with sharp social humor. She is especially remembered for That Very Mab and the poetry collections Dreams to Sell and Songs from Dreamland.

1 Audiobook

'That Very Mab'

'That Very Mab'

by May Kendall, Andrew Lang

About the author

Born Emma Goldworth Kendall in 1861, May Kendall wrote under a pen name and built a varied literary career as a poet, novelist, and satirist. Sources consistently connect her with Somerville College, Oxford, and describe her as a writer whose work often blended fantasy, wit, and social observation.

Her best-known books include the collaborative novel That Very Mab with Andrew Lang, along with the poetry collections Dreams to Sell (1887) and Songs from Dreamland (1894). Reference sources also note that she published fiction and shorter pieces for periodicals, showing how comfortably she moved between poetry, satire, and prose.

Modern readers often find her interesting for the way she brought playful imagination into conversation with bigger Victorian-era ideas, including science and society. Although she is not as widely known today as some of her contemporaries, her work still stands out for its lively intelligence and unusual mix of humor, fantasy, and critique.