Flora Annie Steel (2 April 1847 – 12 April 1929) was a writer who lived in

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

for 22 years. She was noted especially for books set in the Indian sub-continent or connected with it. Her novel ''

On the Face of the Waters ''On the Face of the Waters'' is a novel by English author Flora Annie Steel. It was first published in 1897 when it was hailed by critics as one of the best novels dealing with the Indian Rebellion of 1857 The Indian Rebellion of 1857 ...

'' (1896) describes incidents in the

Indian Mutiny The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the fo ...

Personal life

She was born Flora Annie Webster at Sudbury Priory, Sudbury, Middlesex, the sixth child of George Webster. Her mother, Isabella MacCallum, was an heiress. In 1867 she married Henry William Steel, a member of the

Indian Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 300 million ...

, and they lived in India until 1889, chiefly in the

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...

, with which most of her books are connected. She grew deeply interested in native Indian life and began to urge educational reforms on the government of India. Mrs Steel herself became an Inspectress of Government and Aided Schools in the Punjab and also worked with

John Lockwood Kipling John Lockwood Kipling (6 July 1837 – 26 January 1911) was an English art teacher, illustrator and museum curator who spent most of his career in India. He was the father of the author Rudyard Kipling. Life and career Lockwood Kipling was b ...

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. ...

's father, fostering Indian arts and crafts. When her husband's health was weak, Flora Annie Steel took over some of his responsibilities. She died at her daughter's house in

Minchinhampton Minchinhampton is an ancient Cotswolds market town in the Stroud District in Gloucestershire, South West England. The town is located on a hilltop, south-east of Stroud. The common offers wide views over the Severn Estuary into Wales and furth ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

on 12 April 1929. Her biographers include

Violet Powell Lady Violet Georgiana Powell (''née'' Pakenham; 13 March 1912 – 12 January 2002) was a British writer and critic. Her husband was the author Anthony Powell. Life and career Lady Violet was the third daughter of Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl ...

and Daya Patwardhan.

Writing

Flora was interested in relating to all classes of

Indian society Indian culture is the heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, belief systems, political systems, artifacts and technologies that originated in or are associated with the ethno-linguistically diverse India. The term ...

. The birth of her daughter gave her a chance to interact with local women and learn their language. She encouraged the production of local handicrafts and collected folk-tales, a collection of which she published in 1894. Her interest in schools and the education of women gave her insight into native life and character. A year before leaving India, she co-authored and published ''

The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...

'', which gave detailed directions to European women on all aspects of household management in India. In 1889 the family moved back to Britain, and she continued her writing there. Some of her best work, according to the 1911 ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', is contained in two collections of her short stories, ''From the Five Rivers'' and ''Tales of the Punjab''. She also wrote a popular history of India. John F. Riddick describes Steel's ''The Hosts of the Lord'' as one of the "three significant works" produced by

Anglo-Indian Anglo-Indian people fall into two different groups: those with mixed Indian and British ancestry, and people of British descent born or residing in India. The latter sense is now mainly historical, but confusions can arise. The '' Oxford English ...

writers on Indian missionaries, along with ''The Old Missionary'' (1895) by

William Wilson Hunter Sir William Wilson Hunter (15 July 18406 February 1900) was a Scottish historian, statistician, a compiler and a member of the Indian Civil Service. He is most known for '' The Imperial Gazetteer of India'' on which he started working in 1869 ...

and ''Idolatry'' (1909) by

Alice Perrin Alice Perrin or Alice Robinson (15 July 1867 – 13 February 1934) was a British novelist who wrote about the British in colonial India. She became successful after the publication of her short ghost story collection ''East of Suez''. Life Perr ...

. Among her other literary associates in India was

Bithia Mary Croker Bithia Mary (or May) Croker (née Sheppard, c. 1848 or 1849 – 20 October 1920) was an Irish novelist, most of whose work concerns life and society in British India. Her 1917 novel ''The Road to Mandalay'', set in Burma, was the uncredited basis ...

Douglas Sladen Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen (5 February 1856, London-12 February 1947, Hove) was an English author and academic. Life Educated at Temple Grove School, East Sheen, Cheltenham College, and Trinity College, Oxford, in 1879 Sladen migrated to ...

: "Lady Authors", in: ''Twenty Years of My Life'' (London: Constable, 1915), p. 120 ff.

Bibliography

STEEL(1894) Tales of the Punjab (15628450798)

References

External links

* * *
Play 'Grand-dad' by Steel on Great War Theatre
{{DEFAULTSORT:Steel, Flora Annie 1847 births 1929 deaths Writers from Wembley English short story writers 19th-century English novelists 20th-century English novelists 19th-century English historians English tax resisters Europeans in India Feminism in India 19th-century British short story writers 20th-century British short story writers 19th-century British women writers 20th-century British women writers British women historians 20th-century English historians