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.
She is not mentioned in Teresa Barnard
's biography of Seward.
After her eldest daughter became famous and developed a correspondence with Joanna Baillie
...
Friends, Associates
Frances Brooke
Hannah More
and Anna Seward
were among the invited guests. The anecdotalist Baptist Noel Turner
later related from FB
's own mouth a story of Johnson asking her to withdraw from the others so that...
Friends, Associates
Mary Scott
MS
was probably a friend from an early age of the dissenting hymn-writer Anne Steele
, who lived not very far away and who was a generation older. They spent much time together in 1773...
Friends, Associates
Frances Jacson
The Jacson sisters became acquainted with the literary circle in Lichfield which also included Erasmus Darwin
, Anna Seward
, and Thomas Day
, as well as their cousin Sir Brooke Boothby
, who probably introduced them there.
Shteir, Ann B. “Botanical Dialogues: Maria Jacson and Women’s Popular Science Writing in England”. Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
23
, No. 3, pp. 301-17.
308
Friends, Associates
Maria Elizabetha Jacson
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
Friends, Associates
Ann Jebb
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.
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
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...