Charlotte Smith was an English novelist and poet of the School of Sensibility whose Elegiac Sonnets (1784) contributed to the revival of the form in England. She also helped to set conventions for Gothic fiction and wrote political novels of sensibility. Despite ten novels, four children's books and other works, she saw herself mainly as a poet and expected to be remembered for that.

Catherine Ann Dorset was a British author of poems for children. She had a successful career as a writer. Dorset anonymously collaborated on several works with her sister, Charlotte, which were Catherine Ann's first publications. Her better-known works were published after she took on writing as a career, following the death of her husband ..