Jean Ingelow

Jean Ingelow was an English poet and storyteller whose writing ranged from lyric verse to imaginative literature for younger readers. Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. gathers the first part of a substantial poetry collection, while Mopsa The Fairy follows a child into a realm of fairies, magic, and royal courts. Wonder-Box Tales brings together five shorter fairy tales, including The Ouphe of the Wood and The Prince's Dream. Project Gutenberg classifies the story collection as juvenile literature and credits Diantha W. Horne as its illustrator. Ingelow first published Mopsa the Fairy in the nineteenth century, and its journey narrative shows the same interest in childhood wonder and moral choice that appears across the shorter tales. Read together, these books present both major sides of her literary work: the poet attentive to feeling and nature, and the children's author building fantasy from travel, transformation, generosity, and desires that carry unexpected costs.