Anna Abney is among the last descendants of the Abney family, former residents of Measham Hall, a lost house of Derbyshire. The Measham Hall series is a fictionalised account of her ancestors’ lives.

After growing up in London, Anna lived in Ireland for thirteen years. She wrote her PhD on the seventeenth century writer, Margaret Cavendish, the first English woman to be published in her own name, under the supervision of Lisa Jardine at Queen Mary, University of London. She then taught in the English and Creative Writing department of the Open University for several years. She has two grown up children and now lives in rural Kent with her screenwriter husband and their border collie, dividing her time between the equally demanding pursuits of writing and gardening.

She also writes under the name Madeline Dewhurst and her novel Charity is published by Lightning Books.