Although she wrote, edited, or translated more than fifty books for children, Rose Fyleman is remembered primarily for her poems about fairies. For several decades she was known as the "accredited poet of fairies," but her publications extended far beyond poetry and far beyond fairies. She also wrote fiction--both fantasy and realistic--plays, information books, and opera librettos.

Born in 1877 in Nottingham, England, Rose Fyleman began writing as a young girl, functioning as the "poet laureate" of her family, not, she recalled in 1940, "that any particular fuss was made of my accomplishments." Still, on holidays and birthdays she "was expected to produce some sort of rhymed tribute of the event." Most of those early efforts have not survived, and, indeed, Fyleman's interest in writing was only occasional and recreational for approximately forty years.

After her early schooling she studied at the University College in Nottingham where she was, by...