Wood, Mrs Henry (1814–1887)

English novelist who was a pioneer of the regional novel of realism. Her works include the melodramatic East Lynne (1861), a novel of middle-class life that sold over half a million copies; it was also dramatized repeatedly and translated into several languages. She owned and edited the magazine Argosy, in which she published her series of short stories, the Johnny Ludlow Papers (1874–87).

Wood wrote nearly 40 novels, including the highly popular Mrs Halliburton's Troubles and The Channings, both published in 1862. Her plots frequently revolve around crimes, making her works forerunners of the modern detective novel, while their narrative tone is often moralizing.