ABSTRACT
Dorothy Kilner (1755–1836) lived with her brother and sister-in-law Mary Ann Kilner (neé Maze) in Maryland Point, Essex. Both women authored several children’s books for the publisher John Marshall between 1780 and 1790. Dorothy wrote her tales under the pseudonym ‘M. P.’, later expanded to ‘Mary Pelham’, although the initials originally referred to her domicile. Kilner’s tracts included The Holiday Present (ca. 1780–1), The Village School (1783), and Anecdotes of a Boarding-School (1790). Her most enduring work was The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse (1783–4), sometimes described as the first instance of the use of an animal who tells a full-length story from its own perspective (Barry, Children’s Books, p. 128). Mary Ann Kilner, whose works were authored under the pseudonym ‘S. S.’, was responsible for lighter fare: Adventures of a Pincushion (1785), Memoirs of a Peg-Top (1785), and Jemima Placid (1788).
