Born into a family of Unitarian authors, theologians and doctors, educated by her father and aunt, she read French, Italian and Latin at a very young age, began writing for magazines at the age of 17 and wrote numerous historical books on Anne Boleyn (1827), Joseph Addison (1843), Elizabeth I (1818) and James I (1822). Wishing to develop children’s reading, as a perfect Victorian progressive concerned with their education, she composed several books to help them read and rewrote, simplifying the vocabulary, “ The Pilgrim’s Progress” by Bunyan, “Robinson Crusoe” as well as Aesop’s “Fables”, in the series “In Words of One Syllable” under the pseudonym Mary Godolphin.
