Lucy Crane (1842–1882)

Lucy Crane was born in Liverpool to Marie and Thomas Crane, a portrait and miniature painter. Her elder brother Thomas and younger brother Walter both became prominent artists. In 1845, when Lucy was a small child, the family moved to Torquay. She went away to school in London, and in 1859 the family left Torquay for London. Crane showed talent and skill in drawing and coloring from an early age. In straitened financial circumstances, she went to work as a governess. She became an accomplished musician, and was distinguished for her knowledge of early Italian and English works. Crane wrote children's verses, nursery rhymes, and stories, and in 1882 published a translation of the Brothers Grimm's Household Stories from German to English. She also worked with her father and her brother Walter on a number of projects. She wrote original verses for some children's books illustrated by Walter, such as How Jessie was Lost, The Adventures of Puffy, and Annie and Jack; some of these stories were published in Argosy Magazine. The selection and arrangement of accompaniments to the nursery songs in The Baby's Opera and The Baby's Bouquet (1882) were also made by her. In the last few years of her life, Crane gave lectures in London on fine art. Six of these were published posthumously in 1888 as Art and the Formation of Taste. She died at age 40 in 1882, at the home of a friend at Bolton-le-Moors.