Ann Hatton

-
Besides her poems and opera librettos dating from the late eighteenth century, AH published with the Minerva Press fourteen novels or romances as Ann (or Anne) of Swansea, beginning in 1810. A highly intelligent though not particularly literary or highbrow writer, she reflects in turn almost every style of the period: settings historical and modern, in Wales, Scotland, the Lake District, and Ireland, besides Italy and Germany; historical romance, modern satire, and the emerging silver fork novel. Her theatrical heritage may have helped to produce her fine ear for dialogue.

Milestones

29 April 1764

Ann Julia Kemble (later AH ) was born at Worcester.
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.
7:171

About 1775

The eleven-year-old Ann Kemble penned a play; it was acted at her father 's theatre at Brecon. But no records substantiate her account of it.
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.
7: 171
Henderson, Jim. “Ann of Swansea: a life on the edge”. National Library of Wales Journal, Vol.
34
, No. 1, pp. 1-47.
13

By April 1784

The future AH published with her name (Ann Curtis, sister of Mrs. Siddons) Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects, with a strong subscription list, dedicated to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire .
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
57 (1784): 314

3 March 1794

Tammany; or, The Indian Chief, with a libretto entirely by AH , opened in New York: it was the first American (serious) opera on a native Indian subject.
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.
7: 173
Henderson, Jim. “Ann of Swansea: a life on the edge”. National Library of Wales Journal, Vol.
34
, No. 1, pp. 1-47.
17

October 1838

AH addressed some verses to her old friend the Swansea doctor Douglas Cohen .
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.
7: 175

26 December 1838

AH died at the age of seventy-four, after being a widow for more than thirty years, of a renal dysfunction, probably Bright's Disease.
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.
7: 175
Henderson, Jim. “Ann of Swansea: a life on the edge”. National Library of Wales Journal, Vol.
34
, No. 1, pp. 1-47.
41

Biography

Birth and Family

29 April 1764

Ann Julia Kemble (later AH ) was born at Worcester.
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.
7:171