Ann Yearsley

-
Standard Name: Yearsley, Ann
Birth Name: Ann Cromartie
Married Name: Ann Yearsley
Pseudonym: The Milkwoman
Nickname: Lactilla, or the Bristol Milkwoman
AY became famous at the outset of her career as a primitive or untaught poet: a role she herself rejected in the course of a bitter row with her patron Hannah More . She went on to publish without the help of patrons, and to add a play and a novel to her poetry. Her letters remained unpublished. Though actually far from uneducated (she packs her poems with literary allusions), she is a writer who lays less emphasis on formal structures or conventions than on sturdy individualism and on the Romantic outpouring of emotion.
Sepia version of engraving of Ann Yearsley by Wilson Lowry, 1787, from an unknown artist. She is turned 3/4 to the left and wears a large shady hat, jacket, and dress. The portrait has an oval frame embellished with flowers, ribbons, and an urn. Underneath is written "Ann Yearsley. The Bristol Milk Woman & Poetess."

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Literary responses Anna Letitia Barbauld
Recently William McCarthy has pronounced this poem seldom matched for conceptual density. (He cites as its peers in this respect Johnson 's The Vanity of Human Wishes and Ann Yearsley 's Addressed to Ignorance.)
McCarthy, William. Anna Letitia Barbauld, Voice of the Enlightenment. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
475
Textual Production Jane Cave
Twenty people were killed in this episode, which happened on 30 September. The pamphlets containing JC 's poem survive in Bristol Central Reference Library .
Schürer, Norbert. “Jane Cave Winscom: Provincial Poetry and the Metropolitan Connection”. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
36
, No. 3, pp. 415-31.
421n37
It was duly added to her next collection. Ann Yearsley
Textual Features Mary Maria Colling
As its extended title suggests, the book is prefaced by three letters from Bray to Southey. The correspondence provided the Poet Laureate with MMC 's life history, as well as examples of her poems. The...
Literary responses Mary Whateley Darwall
Before the appearance of her first book, Mary Whateley was celebrated by a Walsall poet, Stephen Chatterton , for excelling Sappho 's odes. During the same period, in 1861, the Gentleman's Magazine published an exaggerated...
Family and Intimate relationships Elizabeth Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
Her father, Frederick Augustus Hervey, later Earl of Bristol , entered the Church as a younger son, and rose to be Bishop of Derry. He is known to history as the earl-bishop, a...
Travel Eliza Fletcher
Independent-minded as she was, EF faced restrictions on her activities as an unmarried girl. She had been taken on a tour of the Scottish Highlands in 1786, but now when she badly wanted to travel...
politics Eliza Fletcher
EF 's patronage of writers was bound up with her political views as an abolitionist: in March 1788 she was actively circulating for sale Ann Yearsley 's A Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Eliza Fletcher
The correspondence concerned books read, benevolent schemes undertaken (some having to do with inoculation or with Sunday schools), and particularly efforts to secure a career and literary income for the poet Ann Yearsley .
Waldron, Mary. “A Different Kind of Patronage: Ann Yearsley’s Later Friends”. The Age of Johnson, edited by Paul J. Korshin and Jack Lynch, Vol.
13
, AMS Press, pp. 283-35.
290, 294, 295ff
Textual Production Eliza Fletcher
Eliza Dawson (later EF ) sent to Ann Yearsley a poetic epistle whose topics included despair (apparently ascribing that emotion to Yearsley).
Waldron, Mary. “A Different Kind of Patronage: Ann Yearsley’s Later Friends”. The Age of Johnson, edited by Paul J. Korshin and Jack Lynch, Vol.
13
, AMS Press, pp. 283-35.
307
Occupation Eliza Fletcher
This friendship was built on a shared interest in literature, in patronising the poor or socially oppressed who aspired to writing, in encouraging inoculation and in promoting Sunday schools. Eliza was interested particularly in the...
Friends, Associates Eliza Fletcher
Eliza Dawson set herself to achieve a real friendship with Yearsley , who however was touchy about it, and took it on herself to lecture Eliza about her taste for novels, condemning them as the...
Literary responses Christian Milne
CM knew from harsh experience that for a labouring-class woman, publishing poems invited personal criticism (as Elizabeth Hands in England had understood). She says she met with encouragement from patrons but that her neighbours assumed...
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Montagu
EM supported her friend Hannah More in organizing subscriptions for Ann Yearsley 's Poems, on Several Occasions.
Myers, Sylvia Harcstark. The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship, and the Life of the Mind in Eighteenth-Century England. Clarendon.
261
Textual Production Hannah More
HM wrote her first surviving letter about Ann Yearsley to Elizabeth Montagu , recounting in high terms the former's intense gratitude to the latter.
Waldron, Mary. Lactilla, Milkwoman of Clifton: The Life and Writings of Ann Yearsley, 1753-1806. University of Georgia Press.
49
Textual Production Hannah More
HM composed a Prefatory Letter to Montagu , telling her about Yearsley , designed for printing at the head of Yearsley's poems to be published by subscription.
Waldron, Mary. Lactilla, Milkwoman of Clifton: The Life and Writings of Ann Yearsley, 1753-1806. University of Georgia Press.
60

Timeline

1764: German labouring-class poet Anna Luise Karsch...

Writing climate item

1764

German labouring-class poet Anna Luise Karsch first reached print with four separate publications at Berlin, most importantly a collection, Auserlesene Gedichte (edited for publication by J. G. Sulzer ).

April 1789: The Gentleman's Magazine published Anna Seward's...

Women writers item

April 1789

The Gentleman's Magazine published Anna Seward 's selection of living celebrated Female Poets.

30 September 1793: Troops opened fire on citizens of Bristol...

National or international item

30 September 1793

Troops opened fire on citizens of Bristol who were demonstrating against the imposition of tolls on a bridge.

By June 1806: Poems Written on Different Occasions by the...

Women writers item

By June 1806

Poems Written on Different Occasions by the domestic servant Charlotte Richardson were selected, edited, and published with some account of the author by the middle-class activist and social reformer Catharine Cappe .

Texts

Yearsley, Ann. A Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave Trade. G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1788.
Yearsley, Ann. An Elegy on Marie Antoinette. Printed for the author, 1794, http://3 copies known: 2 BL, Houghton.
Yearsley, Ann. Earl Goodwin. G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1791.
Yearsley, Ann. Poems, on Several Occasions. T. Cadell, 1785.
Yearsley, Ann. Poems, on Several Occasions. G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1786.
Yearsley, Ann. Poems, on Various Subjects. G. G. J. and J. Robinson.
Yearsley, Ann. Reflections on the Death of Louis XVI. Printed for the author, 1793.
Yearsley, Ann. Sequel to the Reflections on the Death of Louis XVI. Printed for the author, 1793.
Yearsley, Ann. Stanzas of Woe. G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1790, http://Few known copies:BL, Cambridge UL, Houghton, Huntington.
Yearsley, Ann. The Dispute. Printed for the author, 1791.
Yearsley, Ann. The Royal Captives. G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1795.
Yearsley, Ann. The Rural Lyre. G. G. and J. Robinson, 1796.