Mrs. (Barbara) Hofland

Born Barbara Wreaks in Sheffield in 1770, she became one of the most prolific English authors writing for young readers in the first half of the 19th century. After an early marriage to Thomas Bradshawe Hoole left her widowed, she later married the landscape painter Thomas Christopher Hofland. Writing helped support her family, and over the course of her career she published a large body of work across children's literature, fiction, poetry, educational books, and descriptive writing.

She is especially remembered for her moral and didactic stories for children, with sources often crediting her with around 66 such works. Her books were widely read in their day, and she also wrote topographical and travel-based works, including a description of Sir John Soane's museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Hofland died on November 4, 1844. Although not as widely read now as some of her contemporaries, she remains an important figure in the history of children's literature and women's writing in Britain.