When she was 11, Colman-Smith and her parents moved to the capital of Jamaica from England after her father took a job with the West India Improvement Company. It is in Kingston that Colman-Smith was introduced to the Jamaican folklore she would later go on to bring to life in her illustrated Annancy Stories (1889). Despite only living here for four years, the folklore she encountered in Kingston clearly made an impression on Colman-Smith, as it influenced her to write not only Annancy Stories but another work incorporating Jamaican folklore several years later, and it may have contributed to her interest in the occult exhibited in her other works.