High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Mary Martha Sherwood (née Butt) (6 May 1775 22 September 1851) was a prolific and influential writer of children's literature in nineteenth-century Britain. She composed over 400 books, tracts, magazine articles, and chapbooks; among the most famous are The History of Little Henry and his Bearer (1814), The History of Henry Milner (1822 37), and The History of the Fairchild Family (1818 47). Sherwood is known primarily for the strong evangelicalism that colored her early writings; however, her later works are characterized by common Victorian themes, such as domesticity. Sherwood's childhood was uneventful, although she recalled it as the happiest part of her life. After she married Captain Henry Sherwood and moved to India, she converted to evangelical Christianity and began to write for children. Although her books were initially intended only for the children of the military encampments in India, the British public also received them enthusiastically