Olive Garnett ( 21 August 1871 – 17 March 1958) was an English diarist and author of two collections of short stories inspired by her time in Russia.

She grew up on St Edmund’s Terrace, Primrose Hill, an area popular with artists and literary figures including the painter, Ford Madox Brown.

[8] In December she attended a meeting of the Society of Friends of Russian Freedom, where she saw the Ukrainian revolutionary and writer Sergey Stepnyak-Kravchinsky, known as Sergius Stepniak.

[9] They met formerly the following year and Garnett quickly became attracted to him, writing, "I like Stepniak more and more, and in proportion as I like him I find him positively handsome.

"[15] In 1896 she spent a year as a governess in Russia in the "highly cultivated Arseniev household" where she mixed with the "best Petersburg families", attended literary salons, and taught English.

[17] When Garnett's father retired from the British Museum in 1899, she and her parents moved to Tanza Road, Hampstead.

"[26] In 1910 Garnett attended Ford's court case, which resulted in him spending ten days in prison for unpaid child maintenance.

[33] Barry C. Johnson subsequently published three collections of her diary: During the 1890s Garnett contributed to the anarchist newspaper The Torch, run by William Michael Rossetti's older children, including Olivia Frances Madox.