Dorothy hartley (1893-1985) was born in Skipton, Yorkshire. She studied and taught art throughout her long life, but made her name with a series of books, including the multi-volume The Life and Work of the People of England. An inveterate traveller, in the 1930s she journeyed by car from Egypt to the Congo, taking many photographs which were later exhibited at the Imperial Institute, and later travelled widely in the British Isles - these peregrinations formed the basis of many of her books. After a successful career writing and illustrating books she wrote journalism for the Guardian in later life.