Crowe, nee Stevens, (1803-76) was an English novelist, story writer and playwright who also wrote for children. Her marriage to an army officer 20 years her senior was an unhappy one and by 1838 she had separated from her husband and made the acquaintance of a number of writers. Following the success of several novels commenting on the predicament of Victorian women, whose plots at times mirrored her own situation, she turned increasingly to supernataural subjects and this book, first published in 1848, became her most popular work.