Eliza Keary's sole volume of verse for adults, Little Seal-Skin and Other Poems, was published in 1874, when Keary was already middle-aged. Its finest pieces are remarkable for their feminist agenda and their experimentation with verse form; nothing else in Keary's oeuvre is comparable. Before 1874 Keary published exclusively for children; afterward she turned primarily to children's verse and devotional manuals. Her sister, Annie Keary, was a well-known children's writer of the day, and the two collaborated on several projects. Their nephew Charles F. Keary was a creative writer and an early contributor to the Dictionary of National Biography, as well as an authority on Scandinavian mythology and prehistory and on English and international medals and coinage. Between 1887 and 1893 he catalogued the English coin collection of the British Museum.

Eliza Harriet Keary was born in Sculcoates, part of the town of Kingston-upon-Hull, the last of seven children of William and...