Ethel Charlotte Pedley (19 June 1859 – 6 August 1898) was an Australian author and musician. Pedley's most well-known book is Dot and the Kangaroo, which featured a little girl named Dot who becomes lost in the Australian outback, and is helped to find her way back home by a friendly kangaroo. The illustrations were drawn by Frank P. Mahony. Pedley was a believer in the conservation of the Australian flora and fauna, and usually wrote her books from this perspective, singling out 'man' as disconnected from nature and the rest of the animals. Ethel's preface to Dot and the Kangaroo is as follows: