Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Anna Seward
-
Standard Name: Seward, Anna
Birth Name: Anna Seward
Nickname: The Swan of Lichfield
Nickname: Nancy
AS
, living at a distance from London, was nevertheless a woman of letters, of the later eighteenth century and just beyond. She staked her claim to fame firstly on her poetry (though she was always willing to try genres unusual to her, like sermons and a biography of Erasmus Darwin
), secondly on her letters. In these and in her newspaper contributions she was also a literary critic, familiar with the criteria of both the Augustan and Romantic eras and gifted besides with an unfailing independence of judgement.
Probably through their cousin Sir Brooke Boothby
, the Jacson sisters became acquainted with an intellectually-minded group of people of both sexes based in Lichfield: Erasmus Darwin
as well as Anna Seward
and Thomas Day
A particular sparring partner of AJ
, who would attack her boldest reasoning, with his quaint and lively repartees, was the young William Paley
, later an eminent theologian.
Meadley, George William. “Memoir of Mrs. Jebb”. The Monthly Repository, Vol.
7
, pp. 597 - 604, 661.
598
She formed another close and...
Friends, Associates
Lady Eleanor Butler
Among their many visitors (apart from the local gentry, with whom they duly established links), close friends included Anna Seward
, Henrietta Maria Bowdler
(who wrote mock-flirtatiously of LEB
as her veillard [sic] or old...
Friends, Associates
Anne Steele
AS
evidently chose her friends at least partly for their literary interests, since they included three publishing women of a younger generation—Hannah More
, Anna Seward
, and (a closer friend than the first...
Friends, Associates
J. S. Anna Liddiard
She wrote that Lady Eleanor Butler
and Sarah Ponsonby
, the Ladies of Llangollen, treated her with very kind and flattering attention when she visited them.
Liddiard, J. S. Anna. Kenilworth and Farley Castle: with Other Poems. Hibernia–Press Office.
prelims
She may perhaps have known Anna Seward
Friends, Associates
Jane Cave
It is possible, though this is speculative, that JC
became acquainted while living at Winchester with the hymn-writer Anne Steele
(who lived not far away), with Anna Seward
and Hannah More
(who were friends of...
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Pipe Wolferstan
Samuel Pipe Wolferstan"s friends included Erasmus Darwin
, Anna Seward
, Thomas Gisborne
, and the novelist Robert Bage
. Of EPW
's own friends, Mary Gresley
was seriously pursued by her husband before he married Elizabeth.
Wolferstan, Elizabeth Pipe. “Preface”. Agatha, edited by John Goss.
Hays, Mary. “Chronology and Introduction”. The Correspondence (1779-1843) of Mary Hays, British Novelist, edited by Marilyn Brooks, Edwin Mellen, pp. xv - xx; 1.
Mavor, Elizabeth. The Ladies of Llangollen. Michael Joseph.
126
Friends, Associates
Mary Tighe
Before she left London, MT
met there her fellow Irish poet Tom Moore
. He subsequently visited her in Dublin and complimented her in verse. She exchanged poems with Barbarina Wilmot (later Lady Dacre)
...
Friends, Associates
Mary Martha Sherwood
MMS
judged Anna Seward
to be greedy for flattery, especially from the opposite sex. In 1799 she met Hannah More
, who was then at the height of her fame and to whom admittance was...
Friends, Associates
Melesina Trench
In England and (especially) Ireland her friends (with whom she kept up largely by correspondence) included a number of other amateur writers: Mary Leadbeater
(from 1802), Lady Eleanor Butler
and Sarah Ponsonby
(the Ladies of...
Friends, Associates
Henrietta Maria Bowdler
Frances Burney
preferred HMB
, as more kind and gentle, to her sister Frances Bowdler. Burney amusingly records a visit by herself, HMB and others, to Lady Miller
of Batheaston on 8 June 1780, when...
Health
Ann Radcliffe
Rictor Norton believes that AR
may have suffered a nervous breakdown in 1803, after finishing Gaston de Blondeville, and another in late 1812, after the publishing of Anna Seward
's letters alleging that she...
