F. E. Penny

Fanny Emily Farr Penny (29 December 1847 – 22 December 1939) was a British novelist. She lived for twenty-four years in India and most of her forty-four novels are set there.

Fanny Emily Farr was born in 1847 in Covehithe, Suffolk, England, the daughter of the Rev. John Farr, rector in Gillingham, Norfolk, and Emily Caroline Cobbold Farr, daughter of brewer John Cobbold and poet Elizabeth Cobbold. She was educated at Queen's College and Bedford College in London. In 1877, she married the Rev. Frank Penny. The Rev. Penny was a chaplain for the Indian Ecclesiastical Establishment and she accompanied him to India, where they lived until his retirement in 1901. They retired to Ealing.

A number of her novels feature the clash between western and Indian culture, and while Penny favors her Christian British culture her depiction of Indian culture is not unsympathetic. The Outcaste (1912) features a Western-educated Christian Indian ostracized by Indian culture. A Mixed Marriage (1903) features an interracial marriage between an upper class white British woman, Lorina Carlyon, and a wealthy Indian Muslim aristocrat, Mir Yacoob. A number of her novels feature magical elements, such as divination and men changing into animals.

She also wrote several works of non-fiction, including Southern India (1914), featuring illustrations of a wide variety of Indian people by Lady Lawley.

Fanny Emily Penny died on 22 December 1939 in Ealing.