Maria Graham, Lady Callcott (née Dundas; 19 July 1785 – 21 November 1842), was a British writer of travel books and children's books, and also an accomplished illustrator. Early life She was born near Cockermouth in Cumberland as Maria Dundas, and didn't see much of her father during her childhood and teenage years, as he was one of the many naval officers that the Scottish Dundas clan has raised through the years. George Dundas (1756–1814) (not to be confused with the much more famous naval officer George Heneage Lawrence Dundas) was made post-captain in 1795 and saw plenty of action as commander of HMS Juno, a fifth-rate 32-gun frigate, between 1798 and 1802. In 1803 he was given the command of , a 74-gun third-rate that had been Nelson's flagship during the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, and took her down to Jamaica to patrol the Caribbean waters until 1806. In 1808 his sea-fighting years were over, and he took an appointment as head of the naval works at the British East India Company's dockyard in Bombay. When he went out to India he brought his now 23-year-old daughter along. During the long trip Maria Dundas fell in love with a young Scottish naval officer aboard, Thomas Graham, third son to Robert Graham, the last Laird of Fintry. They married in India in 1809. In 1811, the young couple returned to England, where Graham published her first book, Journal of a Residence in India, followed soon afterwards by Letters on India. A few years later her father was appointed commissioner of the naval dockyard in Cape Town, where he died in 1814, aged 58, having been promoted rear-admiral just two months earlier. Widow in Chile As all other naval officers' wives, Graham spent several years ashore, seldom seeing her husband. Most of these years she lived in London. But while other officers' wives spent their time with domestic chores, she worked as a translator and book editor. In 1819 she lived in Italy for a time, which resulted in the book Three Months Passed in the Mountains East of Rome, during the Year 1819. Being very interested in the arts, she also wrote a book about the French baroque painter Nicolas Poussin, Memoirs of the Life of Nicholas Poussin (French first names were usually Anglicised in those days), in 1820. In 1821, Graham was invited to accompany her husband aboard