Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Anna Maria Porter
-
Standard Name: Porter, Anna Maria
Birth Name: Anna Maria Porter
Pseudonym: A. P—r
Though she also wrote poetry and other genres, AMP
's name rests on her almost thirty historical romances (totalling 54 volumes). Many had US editions and French translations. She tends to focus on male rather than female relationships. Her settings range across European history and geography; she is interested in independence struggles, and supports an idealised version of rational, constitutional, British middle-class polity against tyranny on the one hand and barbarianism on the other. Her plots emphasize sentiment and morality and (like Sophia Lee
's The Recess) make national events a backdrop to private crises and intrigues. Though her earlier work was regularly judged inferior to that of her sister Jane
, she became very successful.
MLCC
mentions her warm friendships with leading officers of the Royal Navy
, whom she knew through her husband's position. A number of writers too, including Mariana Starke
, became her personal friends.
Crawford, Elizabeth. “Posts tagged Mariana Starke”. Woman and her Sphere.
JP
died in Bristol, having outlived her younger sister, Anna Maria
, by nearly twenty years, and having been some time in bad health.
Todd, Janet, editor. Dictionary of British Women Writers. Routledge.
Mudge, Bradford Keyes, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 116. Gale Research.
269
Linton, Eliza Lynn, and Beatrice Harraden. My Literary Life. Hodder and Stoughton.
88
Performance of text
Jane Porter
JP
's tragedy Switzerland (which has been sometimes wrongly attributed to her sister Anna Maria
), was performed at Drury Lane
, only to be summarily withdrawn after its single, disastrous performance.
Archival evidence is...
Family and Intimate relationships
Jane Porter
JP
lived for most of her life with her younger sister, Anna Maria
, who also became a writer.
Mudge, Bradford Keyes, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 116. Gale Research.
264-5
Todd, Janet, editor. Dictionary of British Women Writers. Routledge.
Publishing
Jane Porter
JP
seems not to have begun writing seriously as early as her younger sister, who probably reached print before her. She helped during the 1790s to write descriptive pamphlets to accompany her brother's earliest military...
Textual Production
Jane Porter
In 1800 appeared a pamphlet essay which may be by JP
or to her and her sister
: A Defence of the Profession of an Actor.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Stuart Bennett Rare Books & Manuscripts: A Catalogue of Books By, For, and About Women of the British Isles, 1696-1892. Stuart Bennett Rare Books & Manuscripts.
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and Thomas McLean
Publishing
Jane Porter
JP
was seen as the senior partner in the paired agreements which she and her sister
made with Longman
on 1 June 1808. Each was to deliver a novel within a year; Jane was to...
Literary responses
Jane Porter
The notice in the Critical Review began by using this novel as a peg for a defence of good novels in general, especially, apparently, those dealing with national histories. The existence of many incompetent novelists...
Textual Production
Jane Porter
Late in her career JP
co-authored collections with her more prolific younger sister
: a two-volume collection of short stories (Tales Round a Winter Hearth (after February 1826), to which she contributed My Chamber...
Literary responses
Jane Porter
JP
was, with her sister
, one of those praised by John O'Keeffe
in his poem Female Authors, Being an Answer to a Lady, who asserted, that by transmigration the soul of Shakespeare
lived in...
Friends, Associates
Mary Robinson
After MR
became known as the prince's mistress, the double standard in public morality made it virtually impossible for respectable women to treat her as a friend. Her admiration for Sarah Siddons
was not reciprocated...
death
Mary Robinson
An autopsy revealed six large gall-stones.
Highfill, Philip H. et al. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press.
13: 37
Though not much past forty, she had outlived all of her immediate family except her daughter and one brother. Jane Porter
wrote an obituary intended for periodical...
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Isabella Spence
EIS
says that her early friendship with Jane
and Anna Maria Porter
was inherited, developing from the friendship between their parents,
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Letters from the North Highlands, During the Summer 1816. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown.
325-6
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
