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).

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. Letters from Italy. Edward and Charles Dilly.
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.
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.

By May 1781

ALM issued the final volume of Poetical Amusements at a Villa near Bath.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
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

A modern facsimile calls her Lady Anna Riggs Miller, but Lady Miller is correct since the title came from her husband; she could not have been Lady Anna unless her father had been at least an earl.

Birth and Family