Anna Miller

Anna, Lady Miller, is best-known as a patron of poetry during the later eighteenth century. She published a travel book, and a serial collection of the poems entered for the performance-oriented contests at which she presided (including poems of her own).
  • BirthName: Anna or Anne Riggs
    Her Christian name is given in both forms. Since she was mentioned as Anna during her childhood, it seems that this was not just a fanciful classical form.

  • Married: Miller; Riggs-Miller
    Her husband changed the family surname to Riggs-Miller in 1780.
  • Pseudonym: An English Woman
  • Titled: Lady
    After thirteen years as Mrs Miller, she acquired the title of Lady only three years before her early death.
  • Indexed: Lady Anna Riggs Miller

Milestones

1741

Anna or Anne Riggs (later ALM) was born in London.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

20 September 1770

ALM dated the first letter she sent her mother after leaving Paris on her way to Italy with her husband , which became her travel book.
Miller, Anna, Lady. Letters from Italy. Second Edition, Edward and Charles Dilly, 1777, 2 vols.
1: 1

By March 1775

ALM both edited and contributed to the first volume of Poetical Amusements at a Villa near Bath, to which she later added a series of three more volumes, the last by May 1781.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
34 (March 1775): 251; 51 (May 1781): 372

1778

An anonymous 18-page pamphlet entitled On Novelty: and On Trifles, and Triflers. Poetical Amusements at a Villa near Bath reads like comment on ALM's Batheaston Vase; it is not clear why library catalogues ascribe it to her authorship.
On Novelty: and On Trifles, and Triflers. R. Cruttwell, 1778.

By May 1781

ALM issued the final volume of Poetical Amusements at a Villa near Bath.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
51 (May 1781): 372

24 June 1781

ALM, died suddenly at Bristol Hotwells.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Biography

Birth and Family

1741

Anna or Anne Riggs (later ALM) was born in London.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

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