Anna Eliza Bray

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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.
116: 49
Black-and-white portrait of Anna Eliza Bray in her youth, 1883.

Milestones

25 December 1790

Anna Eliza Kempe, later known as AEB , was born at six in the morning on Christmas Day in Newington, Surrey.
Todd, Janet, editor. Dictionary of British Women Writers. Routledge.
Bray, Anna Eliza. Autobiography of Anna Eliza Bray. Editor Kempe, John A., Chapman and Hall.
76-7

February 1836

AEB published A Description of the Part of Devonshire Bordering on the Tamar and the Tavy; Its Natural History in a Series of Letters to Robert Southey, in three volumes.
Kirk, John Foster, and S. Austin Allibone, editors. A Supplement to Allibone’s Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors. J. B. Lippincott.
Todd, Janet, editor. Dictionary of British Women Writers. Routledge.
Bray, Anna Eliza. Autobiography of Anna Eliza Bray. Editor Kempe, John A., Chapman and Hall.
295

By 3 December 1870

AEB 's The Revolt of the Protestants of the Cévennes, With Some Account of the Huguenots in the Seventeenth Century was the first account of this French Protestant community to be written in English.
Mudge, Bradford Keyes, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 116. Gale Research.
116: 53
The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870. http://replay.web.archive.org/20070714065452/http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~asp/v2/home.html.
Bray, Anna Eliza. “Introduction”. Autobiography of Anna Eliza Bray, edited by John A. Kempe, Chapman and Hall, pp. 1-36.
2

21 January 1883

AEB died in London, supposedly from the shock of seeing herself publicly branded a thief of a historical treasure, part of the Bayeaux Tapestry.
Schlueter, Paul, and June Schlueter, editors. An Encyclopedia of British Women Writers. Garland.
Todd, Janet, editor. Dictionary of British Women Writers. Routledge.
Bray, Anna Eliza. “Introduction”. Autobiography of Anna Eliza Bray, edited by John A. Kempe, Chapman and Hall, pp. 1-36.
32-3

Biography

Birth and Family

25 December 1790

Anna Eliza Kempe, later known as AEB , was born at six in the morning on Christmas Day in Newington, Surrey.
Todd, Janet, editor. Dictionary of British Women Writers. Routledge.
Bray, Anna Eliza. Autobiography of Anna Eliza Bray. Editor Kempe, John A., Chapman and Hall.
76-7

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