Elizabeth de Beauchamp Goudge FRSL (24 April 1900 – 1 April 1984) was an English writer of fiction and children's books. She won the Carnegie Medal for British children's books in 1946 for The Little White Horse. Goudge was long a popular author in the UK and the US and regained attention decades later.
In 1993, her book The Rosemary Tree was plagiarised by Indrani Aikath-Gyaltsen; the "new" novel set in India was warmly reviewed in The New York Times and The Washington Post before its source was discovered. In 2001 or 2002, J. K. Rowling identified The Little White Horse as one of her favourite books and one of few with a direct influence on the Harry Potter series.
Elizabeth de Beauchamp Goudge was born on 24 April 1900 in Wells, Somerset, in Tower House close by the cathedral in an area known as The Liberty. Her father, the Reverend Henry Leighton Goudge, taught in the cathedral school. Her mother was Miss Ida Collenette from the Channel Isles. Elizabeth was an only child. The family moved to Ely for a Canonry as Principal of the theological college. Later, when her father was made Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, they moved to Christ Church, Oxford. She went to boarding school during WWI and later to Arts College, presumably at Reading College. She made a small living as teacher, and continued to live with her parents.