Anna Dean

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Anna Dean is the pen name of writer Marian Veevers, born in 1956. She is best known for the Dido Kent mystery series, set in the Regency era around Jane Austen’s time.

Marian Veevers was born in Cumberland, England (now Cumbria). She spent part of her childhood in the Midlands, moved back to the Lake District, lived in Wales for a while, and finally settled in Cumbria again in 1984. She lives near Ambleside with her husband. Over the years she has worked as an assistant to a psychologist, for the National Trust, and with the Wordsworth Trust at Grasmere. Writing has always been central to her life; she describes herself as a compulsive writer who began loving stories as a child.

She has an MA in Creative Writing. As Anna Dean, she writes the Dido Kent historical crime novels, which are partly told through letters and are set in the Regency period. Under her real name, she published the historical novel Bloodlines in 1996 and has written short stories and monologues for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Cumbria. In 2017 she published Jane and Dorothy: A True Tale of Sense and Sensibility, comparing the lives of Jane Austen and Dorothy Wordsworth. She also served as Writer in Residence for the Cumbria Archive Service in 2002–2003, using archive material as a source for creative writing.