Mary Rackham was born in Norwich on 14th August 1848 to a merchant family. Little is known of her early life and her biography only re-appears in September 1871 with marriage to Fairman Joseph Mann, a farmer with 800 acres.

Mary moved to Shropham, Norfolk and became involved with the workhouse, visiting the sick and other unfortunates of the parish, her observations and experiences a valuable source for her later stories.

She took up writing, partly to offset the dreary village life of her surroundings, in the 1880s and published her first novel, 'The Parish of Hilby' (1883) at her own expense. It was well received by the critics.

Thus began a career that spanning three decades provided thirty-three novels, hundreds of short stories, and fourteen plays.  Her work was largely focused on rural life in Norfolk and centered on the fictional town of Dulditch, with grim but authentic accounts of poverty and deprivation.

Her marriage produced one boy and three girls. With her husband's death in 1913, she moved to Sheringham.

She is regarded as a major contributor to East Anglian literature with particular praise given to her short stories.