High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Annie Shepherd Swan CBE (July 8, 1859 – June 17, 1943) was a Scottish writer, journalist, novelist and short story writer. Although used her maiden name for most of her literary career, Swan also wrote under the pen names David Lyall and later Mrs Burnett-Smith. She was a highly popular writer of romantic fiction for young women during the Victorian era and published more than 200 novels, serials, short stories and other works of fiction from 1878 to her death in 1943.