Elsie Spicer Eells

Elsie Eusebia Spicer Eells was a researcher of folklore with Iberian roots and a writer who traveled in the early years of the twentieth century across the Atlantic basin and was noted for the publication of several collections of short stories and legends based on the oral tradition of various regions visited, including Brazil and the Azores.

Born Eusebia Spicer in West Winfield, New York, married Burr Gould Eells. Having traveled in the 1920s and 1930s to various countries as a researcher at The Hispanic Society of America in New York, something unusual at the time, Elsie Spicer Eells is the author of numerous works, including Fairy Tales from Brazil (1917), Tales of Giants from Brazil (1918), The Islands of Magic Legends, Folk and Fairy Tales from the Azores (1922), South America's Story (1931) e Tales of Enchantment from Spain (1950). Elsie Spicer Eells passed away on May 24, 1963 at the age of 82.

Elsie Spicer Eells has collaborated in several journals, especially The Outlook and The Deliniator, both from New York.

Part of her work on traditional Brazilian tales is inspired by Sílvio Romero's collection of Popular Tales of Brazil.