Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall (aka H.E. Marshall, 9 August 1867 - 19 September 1941) was a British author, particularly well known for her works of popular national history for children.

She was born in Bo'ness, Scotland, and her father was John Marshall JP, an earthenware manufacturer.

She was educated at a girls' boarding school called Laurel Bank, in Melrose.

Between 1901 and 1904 she was the superintendent of a hall of residence for female students at Glasgow University, but, otherwise, she appears to have made her living throughout her life by writing.

As is made clear by the Prefaces of her books from time to time, she travelled extensively after 1904, including to Melbourne, California and China, although her obituary in "The Times" stated that she spent most of her life in Oxford and in London, where she died.

H.E. Marshall is famous for her 1905 children's history of England, "Our Island Story: A History of England for Boys and Girls", illustrated by A.S. Forrest. In the USA the book was entitled "An Island Story". The book was a bestseller, was printed in numerous editions, and for fifty years was the standard and much-loved book by which children learned the history of England. The book is still to be found in schools and homes, but the last printing was in 1953 and it went out of print in the 1960s. In 2005, an alliance of the [http://www.civitas.org.uk/ Civitas] think-tank and various national newspapers brought the book back into print, with the aim of sending a free copy to each of the UK's primary schools. Readers of "The Daily Telegraph" contributed £25,000 to the cost of the reprint.

H.E. Marshall also wrote:
* "Scotland's Story: A History of Scotland for Boys and Girls" (1906)
* "Beowulf: Translations" (1908)
*"Our Empire Story" (1908)
*"English Literature for Boys and Girls" (1909)
*"History of France" (1912)
*"History of Germany"
*"This Country of Ours" (1917) - the American title of the book, which was published in the United Kingdom as "The Story of the United States" (1919)
*"Kings and Things" (1937).

She was unmarried, and her works must be assumed to be in the public domain.

External links

* [http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/marshall/england/england.html Full text e-book of "An Island Story"] (note that the 1953 edition continued to the First World War).
* [http://www.mainlesson.com/displayauthor.php?author=marshall H.E. Marshall's other works, online] .
*gutenberg author|id=Henrietta_Elizabeth_Marshall|name=Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall ( [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5725 "The Child's English Literature"] (1909) and [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3761 "This Country of Ours"] (1917))
* [http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/dnb/57458-print.html Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]