Anna Maria (Annie) Keary (3 March 18253 March 1879) was an English novelist, poet and an innovative children's writer. Life Annie Keary was born at the rectory in Bilton, now Bilton-in-Ainsty, Yorkshire, the daughter of a former army chaplain, William Keary from County Galway in Ireland, and his wife, Lucy Plumer, of Bilton Hall. She was educated at home, as she suffered from poor health and slight deafness. In 1843, her father became incumbent of Sculcoates, near Hull, and simultaneously of Nunnington in North Yorkshire, where the family moved. Two years later, her father's declining health called for another move to Clifton near Bristol. Their relationship was close and her father gave her much information about Ireland that she later incorporated into her novels. Keary went in 1848 to keep house for a widowed brother with three children, in the semi-rural Trent Vale of north Staffordshire. Six happy years ended when her brother remarried. Soon after, she lost two other brothers and her own long engagement was broken off. Annie's sister Eliza (see below) wrote a memoir after Annie's death in Eastbourne in 1879. This was followed in 1883 by a volume of Annie's letters. The memoir tells how Eliza accompanied the frail Annie to Egypt after her bereavements and disappointment in love, then to Cannes for research for her books, where the healthy climate agreed with her and she spent much time in later years. The sisters helped to run a home for unemployed servant girls in Pimlico, London. They were befriended by the novelist Charles Kingsley and his family. More strongly religious after her trip to Egypt, the dominant side of Annie's life became her family ties. She nursed her mother in her last illness in 1869 and later looked after four young cousins, whose parents were in India. Works Annie Keary's first children's book appeared in 1856, a year after her father died. Success as a novelist came with Sidney Grey: A Tale of School Life (1857), which drew local colour from the grimy brick kilns on the edge of Trent Vale. The Rival Kings (1858) broke new ground for a children's book in featuring rival children's gangs and their hatred for each other. Her third book, The Heroes of Asgard: Tales from Scandinavian Mythology (1857), was the first of four in collaboration with her sister Eliza. It retells the Norse myths for children. Keary continued to