Elizabeth Missing Sewell (19 February 1815 – 17 August 1906) was an English author of religious and educational texts notable in the 19th century.

Influenced by the religious stir of the period, she published in 1840, in The Cottage Monthly, Stories illustrative of the Lord's Prayer, which appeared in book form in 1843.

[1][2] The family experienced money difficulties through the failure of two local banks, and her father died in 1842 deep in debt.

Elizabeth and the other children undertook to pay off the creditors by setting aside a sum each year from her literary earnings, until all was repaid.

Until 1844 the family lived at Pidford Manor or Ventnor, but in that year Mrs Sewell and her daughters settled at Sea View, Bonchurch.

She interrupted her work on this to publish Margaret Percival (1847), which at the suggestion of her brother William urged the claims of the Church of England on young people, in view of secessions to Rome at the time.

In 1849 Miss Sewell journeyed to the Lake District with her Bonchurch neighbours Captain and Lady Jane Swinburne and their son Algernon, the poet, then a boy of twelve.

Finding that her writing earned them too little, she and her sister Ellen (1813–1905) decided to take pupils at their house in Bonchurch, Isle of Wight.

Miss Sewell defied the demands of examinations, having her pupils read widely and take an interest in the issues of the day.

The holidays were often passed abroad: in 1860 she spent five months in Italy and Germany, which led to a volume entitled Impressions of Rome, Florence, and Turin (1862).

[1] According to the Dictionary of National Biography, Elizabeth Sewell's influence over young people was helped by dry humour.