Annie Shepherd Swan (1859-1943)

Annie S. Swan was a prolific Scottish writer, publishing over 200 novels, serials and stories.

She has been called “one of the most commercially successful popular novelists of the later 19th and early 20th centuries”.

Born in Midlothian, she began writing with a serial in “The People’s Friend”, and continued to contribute her stories all through her career.

The novel that made her famous was “Aldersyde”, published in 1883, and admired by Gladstone and Tennyson amongst others.

She was made a CBE in 1930 for services to literature. Her autobiography was published in 1934 and was reprinted many times, but since her death there has been little study of her life and books.

In the last few years, however, there has been a resurgence of interest, and her novels are now being republished under the designation of classics.