Maria Elizabeth Budden, (née Halsey, c. 1780 – 26 April 1832)[1] was a novelist, translator and writer of didactic children's books, who frequently signed her work "M. E.
Also perennially popular were her True Stories... series of history books for young people (1819 onwards), and her novel Claudine: or Humility the Basis of All of the Virtues.
[2] Her novel Right and Wrong Exhibited in the History of Rosa and Agnes (1818) takes the story of twins who grow up to be very different as a way of inculcating "life lessons for the young".
[3] These and other works of hers are available in print on demand editions, for the benefit of scholars seeking source material on the history of education and upbringing.
[4] Both Budden and the poet and novelist Elizabeth Thomas have been associated tentatively with the pseudonymous "Mrs. Bridget Bluemantle", the author of nine novels published by the London Minerva Press between 1806 and 1818.