Amelia Gillespie Smyth (1788–1876) was a Scottish writer who published numerous works in the mid-nineteenth century, including a series of books on Christian scriptures for children[1] and a biography of sixteenth-century Italian classical scholar Olympia Morata.
[2] Smyth's novel Selwyn in Search of a Daughter was initially published in serial form in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine from January to June 1827.
[3] Both works were included in the three-volume collection Selwyn in Search of a Daughter and Other Tales, which was published by Saunders and Otley in 1835.
[3] Another book by Smyth, titled Fit to be a Duchess: With other stories of Courage and Principle, was published by Ward and Lock in 1860.
Of these dialogues, Marion Ann Taylor and Heather Weir write, "Smyth adopted the genre of catechetical writing, casting her interpretive work as a series of conversations between Mama and her child, Mary.