Frances Browne (16 January 1816 - 21 August 1879) was born in Stranorlar, County Donegal, the seventh of twelve children, and lost her sight to smallpox as an infant. She wrote her first poem at seven and went on to publish poetry, essays, reviews, journalism and fiction, later living in Edinburgh and London.

She is best remembered for Granny's Wonderful Chair and Its Tales of the Fairies (1856), a framed collection in which a magical chair carries its owner through a sequence of stories. The tales draw on folkloric motifs, enchanted objects, transformed people, talking animals, fairy kingdoms and moral tests, and are strongly concerned with poverty, abandonment, kindness and social justice. Browne treated fairy fiction as serious literary material rather than nursery entertainment.

A statue of Browne was erected in Stranorlar in 2010, and an annual festival has been held in her honour since 2021.