1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Steel, Flora Annie

STEEL, FLORA ANNIE (1847-), English writer, was born on the 2nd of April 1847, the daughter of George Webster. In 1867 she married an Indian civilian, and for the next twenty-two years lived in India, chiefly in the Punjab, with which most of her books are connected; her interest in the education of women, as an inspectress of schools, gave her a special insight into native life and character. Some of her best work is contained in two collections of short stories: From the Five Rivers (1893) and Tales from the Punjab (1894); while her most ambitious effort was her novel, On the face of the Waters (1896), describing incidents of the Indian Mutiny. She also wrote a popular history of India. Later works are In the Permanent Way (1897), Voices in the Night (1900), The Hosts of the Lord (1900), In the Guardianship of God (1903), A Sovereign Remedy (1906).