Edith Holden was born at Kings Norton, Worcester, in 1871, one of seven children of a Midlands paint manufacturer. The family lived in the small village of Olton in Warwickshire, and it was there that she wrote and illustrated this book. After attending art school, she worked as an illustrator, with her drawings (often of animals) being published in several books.She later moved to London and in 1911 met and married Ernest Smith, a sculptor; they lived in Chelsea and had no children. On March 16,1920, in her forty-ninth year, Edith died tragically by drowning in the Thames, while gathering buds from chestnut trees.
