Author: Eliza Keary

Eliza Keary published poetry and prose in Victorian Britain whose work appeared in periodicals and in book collections during the Victorian period. Little Seal Skin was first published in Macmillan's Magazine in 1868 and later included in Little Seal-Skin and Other Poems, issued in 1874. The poem draws on the selkie tradition, in which a seal form can be shed and a human life assumed, and it develops that material through separation, captivity, memory, and the pull of the sea. Keary's treatment connects a supernatural narrative with domestic feeling, giving the legendary figure an emotional conflict between imposed ties and an earlier identity. The later collection placed the poem beside other lyrical and narrative pieces, showing its role within her broader verse rather than as an anonymous folktale. Little Seal Skin appears without the hyphen documented in period records. The work remains a clear example of Keary's engagement with legend and Victorian narrative poetry.