Evelyn E. Smith was born and lived out her life in New York City. She had two passions—for art and for cats of all sizes. She liked to claim that she wanted a lion until she realized how much they cost to feed, and she made her living as an editor, most notably running the features department at Family Circle magazine. Though she wrote four beloved Miss Melville books, she may be better known as the author of several novels and numerous short stories in the sci-fi genre; she also wrote a number of gothic romances under a pen name, and two non-fiction books on (ahem) practical witchcraft. Smith died in 2000, at the age of 77, in her beloved New York City.
