Mary Eliza Isabella Frere was an English author of works regarding India.
Background
Frere was born at the rectory of Bitton in Gloucestershire, England on 11 August 1845. Nicknamed May, she was the eldest of five children (the others being Catherine, Georgina, Eliza and Bartle) of Henry Bartle Frere and his wife Catherine (died 1899) who was the daughter of Lieutenant-General Sir George Arthur, 1st Baronet.
Career
In 1868 Frere published the first English-language field-collected book of Indian storytales, Old Deccan Days. Mary"s father had served in the colonial administration of Bombay since 1834, and in 1862 he was appointed Governor of Bombay. The family lived in the Parish of Street Mary, Wimbledon, where Mary was privately educated.
Frere died in Sussex on 26 March 1911.
She is buried at Brookwood cemetery.
Views
Though Indian fairy tales are the earliest in existence, yet they are also from another point of view the youngest.