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{{Short description|English writer on India (1847–1929)}}
{{Use British English|date=January 2021}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2021}}
{{Infobox writer 
|name = Flora Annie Steel
|image = Flora Annie Steel.jpg
|imagesize = 200px
|caption = Flora Annie Steel, c. 1903
|pseudonym =
|birth_date = {{birth date|1847|4|2|df=y}}
|birth_place = [[Sudbury, London|Sudbury]], [[Middlesex]], England<ref name="orlando">{{Cite web |url=http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=steefl |title=Flora Annie Steel entry: Overview screen |publisher=Cambridge University Press Online |work=Orlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present |date=2006 |access-date=28 November 2014 |author1=Brown, Susan |author2=Patricia Clements |author3=Isobel Grundy |name-list-style=amp |archive-date=24 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190924092920/http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=steefl |url-status=dead }}</ref>
|death_date = {{death date and age|1929|4|12|1847|4|2|df=y}}
|death_place = [[Minchinhampton]], [[Gloucestershire]], England<ref name=orlando/>

|occupation = Writer
|period = 19th century
|genre = [[History]], [[Fiction]], [[Children's Literature]]
|subject =
|movement =
|influences =
|influenced =
|signature =
|website =
}}
'''Flora Annie Steel''' (2 April 1847 – 12 April 1929) was a writer who lived in [[British Raj|British India]] for 22 years. She was noted especially for books set in the [[Indian subcontinent]] or connected with it. Her novel ''[[On the Face of the Waters]]'' (1896) describes incidents in the [[Indian Mutiny]].

==Personal life==
She was born Flora Annie Webster at Sudbury Priory, [[Sudbury, London|Sudbury, Middlesex]], the third child of George Webster.<ref name=orlando/> Her mother, Isabella MacCallum, was an heiress.<ref name=Powell1981/>{{rp|1}} In 1867 she married Henry William Steel, a member of the [[Indian Civil Service (British India)|Indian Civil Service]], and they lived in India until 1889,<ref name="MacMillan2007">{{Cite book |author=Margaret MacMillan |title=Women of the Raj: The Mothers, Wives, and Daughters of the British Empire in India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5Xh4m4Ljrn4C&q=turki+woman+married+to&pg=PA245 |year=2007 |publisher=Random House Trade Paperbacks |isbn=978-0-8129-7639-7 |pages=245–}}</ref> chiefly in the [[Punjab region|Punjab]], with which most of her books are connected.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} 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]], [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s father, fostering Indian cooking.<ref>{{Cite wikisource |The Indian Biographical Dictionary (1915)/Steel, Mrs. Flora Annie}}</ref> 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]], [[Gloucestershire]] on 12 April 1929.<ref>Orlando. [http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=steefl Retrieved 31 October 2015] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190924092920/http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=steefl |date=24 September 2019 }}</ref> Her biographers include [[Violet Powell]]<ref name=Mannsaker1982>{{Cite journal |last=Mannsaker |first=Frances M. |title=''Flora Annie Steel, Novelist of India'' by Violet Powell |journal=Victorian Studies |date=Autumn 1982 |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages=105–106 |jstor=3827506}}</ref><ref name=Powell1981>{{Cite book |author=Violet Powell |title=Flora Annie Steel, Novelist of India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZUVbAAAAMAAJ |date=May 1981 |publisher=Heinemann|isbn=9780434599578 }}</ref> and Daya Patwardhan.<ref name=Parry1967>{{Cite journal |last=Parry |first=Benita |title=''A Star of India: Flora Annie Steel, Her Works and Times'' by Daya Patwardhan |journal=The Modern Language Review |date=April 1967 |volume=62 |issue=2 |pages=324–325 |doi=10.2307/3723865 |jstor=3723865}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |author=Daya Patwardhan |title=A Star of India: Flora Annie Steel, Her Works and Times |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wRVKAAAAMAAJ |year=1963 |publisher=Sole agents: A. V. Griha Prakashan, Poona}}</ref>

==Writing==
Flora was interested in relating to all classes of [[Culture of India|Indian society]]. 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.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} A year before leaving India, she co-authored and published ''[[The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook]]'', 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|1911 ''Encyclopædia Britannica'']], is contained in two collections of her short stories, ''From the Five Rivers'' and ''Tales of the Punjab''.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

She also wrote a popular history of India.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} John F. Riddick describes Steel's ''The Hosts of the Lord'' as one of the "three significant works" produced by [[Anglo-Indian]] writers on Indian missionaries, along with ''The Old Missionary'' (1895) by [[William Wilson Hunter]] and ''Idolatry'' (1909) by [[Alice Perrin]].<ref name="Riddick2006">{{Cite book |author=John F. Riddick |title=The History of British India: A Chronology |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Es6x4u_g19UC&pg=PA179 |date=1 January 2006 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-313-32280-8 |pages=179}}</ref> Among her other literary associates in India was [[Bithia Mary Croker]].<ref>[[Douglas Sladen]]: "Lady Authors", in: ''Twenty Years of My Life'' (London: Constable, 1915), p. 120 ff.</ref>

==Bibliography==
[[File:STEEL(1894) Tales of the Punjab (15628450798).jpg|thumbnail|''Tales of the Punjab'' (1894), illustrated by John Lockwood Kipling]]
{{columns-list|colwidth=20em|
*''Wide Awake Stories'' (1884)
*''From the Five Rivers'' (1893)
*''Miss Stuart's Legacy'' (1893)
*''Tales of the Punjab'' (1894)
*''The Flower of Forgiveness'' (1894)
*''The Potter's Thumb'' (1894)
*''Red Rowans'' (1895)
*''[[On the Face of the Waters]]'' (1896)
*''In the Permanent Way, and Other Stories'' (1897)
*''In the Tideway'' (1897)
*''[[The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook]]'' (1888)
*''The Hosts of the Lord'' (1900)<ref>{{Cite journal |title=''The Hosts of the Lord'' by Flora Annie Steel |journal=The Sewanee Review |date=January 1901 |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=101–102 |jstor=27528148}}</ref>
*''Voices in the Night'' (1900)
*''In the Guardianship of God'' (1903)
*''A Book of Mortals'' (1905)
*''India'' (1905)
*''A Sovereign Remedy'' (1906)<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Willcox |first=Louise Collier |title=''A Sovereign Remedy'' by Flora Annie Steel |journal=The North American Review |date=April 19, 1907 |volume=184 |issue=613 |pages=861–863 |jstor=25105855}}</ref>
*''A Prince of Dreamers'' (1908)
*''India through the ages; a popular and picturesque history of Hindustan'' (1908)
*''King-Errant'' (1912)
*''The Adventures of Akbar'' (1913)
*''The Mercy of the Lord'' (1914)
*''Marmaduke'' (1917)
*''Mistress of Men'' (1918)
*''[[English Fairy Tales]]'' (1918)
*''A Tale of Indian Heroes'' (1923)
*"Lâl"
*''A Cookery Book''
*''Late Tales''
*''The Curse of Eve''
*''The Gift of the Gods''
*''The Law of the Threshold''
*''The Woman Question''
*''The Garden Of Fidelity: Being The Autobiography Of Flora Annie Steel 1847–1929''<ref name="spectator">{{cite web |url=http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/23rd-november-1929/39/flora-annie-steel |title=Flora Annie Steel |publisher=The Spectator Archive |date=23 November 1929 |access-date=28 November 2014 |author=Meston |pages=39}}</ref>
}}

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}
* {{EB1911|wstitle=Steel, Flora Annie|volume=25|page=861}}

==External links==
{{Sister project links |voy=no |wikt=no |v=no |n=no |b=no|author=no}}
{{Library resources box |by=yes |onlinebooksby=yes |viaf=211452326}}
*{{Gutenberg author |id=1973|name=Flora Annie Webster Steel}}
*{{Internet Archive author |sname=Flora Annie Steel}}
*{{Librivox author |id=3527}}
*[https://www.greatwartheatre.org.uk/db/script/1875/ Play 'Grand-dad' by Steel on Great War Theatre]

{{Victorian children's literature}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Steel, Flora Annie}}
[[Category:1847 births]]
[[Category:1929 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Wembley]]
[[Category:Writers from the London Borough of Brent]]
[[Category:British people in British India]]
[[Category:Writers from British India]]
[[Category:19th-century English novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century English novelists]]
[[Category:19th-century English historians]]
[[Category:19th-century English short story writers]]
[[Category:20th-century English short story writers]]
[[Category:19th-century English women writers]]
[[Category:20th-century English women writers]]
[[Category:20th-century English historians]]
[[Category:English tax resisters]]
[[Category:Feminism in India]]
[[Category:English women historians]]

Flora Annie Steel - Revision history

LolitasErurf at 19:30, 29 January 2026