Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Anna Eliza Bray
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Standard Name: Bray, Anna Eliza
Birth Name: Anna Eliza Kempe
Married Name: Anna Eliza Stothard
Married Name: Anna Eliza Bray
Nickname: Eliza
Used Form: Mrs Bray
Used Form: Mrs Charles Stothard
Used Form: the author of De Foix
AEB
first reached print with a collection of letters, the first of two which appeared over the course of her career. During fifty-four years, she published twelve novels, and twelve historical and biographical works. She edited several posthumous works by others and also produced writing for children. Many of her works were inspired by historical events or figures as well as by English folklore and legend. Some of her novels proved controversial for alleged anti-Catholicism at a time of fierce debate over Catholic Emancipation; much of her fiction and history focuses on Protestant resistance to religious oppression. A popular success during the mid-Victorian period, AEB
has of late received little critical attention.
Mudge, Bradford Keyes, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 116. Gale Research.
MMC
, who was working inTavistock as a domestic servant, sent Anna Eliza Bray
a parcel containing several of her poems.
Bray, Anna Eliza, and Mary Maria Colling. “Letters to Robert Southey”. Fables and Other Pieces in Verse by M.M. Colling, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, pp. 1-85.
2-3
Publishing
Mary Maria Colling
MMC
published (by subscription, arranged by Anna Eliza Bray
) her first and only volume of poetry: Fables and other Pieces in Verse, with a portrait of the author.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
213 (1831): 762
Wright, W. H. Kearley. West-Country Poets: Their Lives and Works. Elliot Stock.
Through her mother CR
was also distantly related to writer Anna Eliza Bray
.
Marsh, Jan. Christina Rossetti: A Writer’s Life. Viking.
16
Reception
Christina Rossetti
The copies printed were distributed among friends and family. They all enjoyed the poems except Christina's brother Gabriel
, who somewhat cattily wrote to their mother: I should advise her to console herself with the...
Intertextuality and Influence
Christina Rossetti
She noted that it was initially titled A Peep at the Goblins in imitation of her cousin Anna Eliza Bray
's recent book, A Peep at the Pixies; Gabriel
came up with the title...
Friends, Associates
Robert Southey
Having early in his life admired writers like Mary Wollstonecraft
and Charlotte Smith
, he later numbered women writers such as Anna Eliza Bray
among his close friends.
Textual Features
Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna
Pre-eminent among the Protestant heroines treated by Foxe is Anne Askew
, whose own texts he includes. Anna Eliza Bray
had published a novel inspired by Foxe in 1828.
Textual Production
Marina Warner
MW
published Joan of Arc
: The Image of Female Heroism, her study of the legendary Maid of Orleans who became a fearless soldier, a martyr, and eventually a saint.