Best known work

• A World of Girls, 1886

Other well known work(s)

• Stories from the Diary of a Doctor, 1893
• The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings, 1899
• The Sorceress of the Strand, 1903

Genres

• Fiction - Novels
• Fiction - Short Stories

Nom de plume

Elizabeth Thomasina Meade, Elizabeth Thomasina Toulmin Smith

Social class

Middle class

Parental background

Her father was a rector and Meade was educated at home by a governess.

At publication of best known work

• Age: 42
• Marital status: Married
• Number of children: 3

Physical description

In her article "Sidelights on Modern Writers: Mrs L.T. Meade" Laura Stubbs relates her meeting with the writer, in which she "looked into the kindly eyes of a plainly-dressed middle-aged woman [...], a marked contrast to the majority of the ladies present, who were in full evening toilette" (New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Vol V, Issue 3, 1 Dec 1901).

Did you know?

Meade was exceptionally prolific and turned out an average of 2000 words a day over the course of a year (Sally Mitchell, ODNB). She wrote nearly 300 books and countless short-stories through the course of her literary career.

Additional information

Considering her extraordinary literary output, there are fairly few scholarly open access sites which discuss Meade and her work. Cornell have a brief introduction including some lovely images of the covers of the 185 books they have acquired in their collection. There are also lots of blog posts, particularly on detection and mystery fan sites and many of her works are available in the usual places on Project Gutenberg, Internet Archive etc.