M. E. Francis was the pen name of Mary Elizabeth Blundell (née Sweetman; 1859 – 9 March 1930)[2] who was a prolific Irish novelist.

The Sweetman family were landed gentry of Longtown, County Kildare, and per family tradition were "long settled in Dublin" and "previously resident near Callan and Newtown, County Kilkenny", tracing their line back to the mid-1500s.

After her father's death, when she was a small child,[4] the remaining family moved to Brussels in 1873 and she spent her summers in Switzerland.

[6] She married Colonel Francis Nicholas Blundell (1853-1884) on 18 November 1879, and moved to Little Crosby, where his family had been notable Catholics since the 16th century.

Blundell had written her first story when she was eight (‘True Joy’) and had a publication in the Irish Monthly the day of her wedding.