Ann Thicknesse

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AT was, it seems, an opportunistic writer. Already accustomed to earning money from publicly performing music, she published five titles in four decades from 1761 to 1800: a self-justifying scandal memoir, two music manuals, a biographical dictionary and an autobiographical novel.
Photograph of a painting of Ann Thicknesse by Thomas Gainsborough, 1760, seated against the backdrop of a red curtain, with her arm resting on a small wooden table piled with books and sheet music. She is wearing a long voluptuous silver dress with a pattern of swirls stitched onto it, lace trimmed sleeves, and soft yellow bows tied around the sleeves and waist. She has dark ribbons tied around her neck and wrist, dark circular earrings, and gold coloured shoes with small heals and buckles. She has a mando

Milestones

22 February 1737
Ann Ford (later AT ) was born near the Temple in London, an only child.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
22 January 1761
Ann Ford (later AT ) issued the first of her two published texts from this year: A Letter from Miss F—d, Addressed to a Person of Distinction [Lord Jersey ], a defence of her conduct which was read, too, as scandalous gossip.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Thicknesse, Ann. A Letter from Miss F—d. 1761.
title-page
By March 1778
AT published with her name Sketches of the Lives and Writings of the Ladies of France, a biographical dictionary whose title includes the boast that it is Addressed to Mrs Elizabeth Carter.
Thicknesse, Ann. Sketches of the Lives and Writings of the Ladies of France. J. Dodsley, E. and C. Dilly, R. Cruttwell, and T. Shrimpton, 1778.
title-page
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
46 (March 1778): 218
By November 1781
AT completed the publication, this time by subscription, of another version or a continuation of her biographical dictionary Sketches of the Lives and Writings of the Ladies of France, now in three volumes of which the first is dated 1780.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
52 (November 1781): 349
Spring or later, 1800
The last of AT 's published works (again by subscription) was a heavily autobiographical novel or secret history, The School for Fashion.
The dedication's mention of sermons preached in Lent indicates that the book appeared around the Easter season.
Thicknesse, Ann. The School for Fashion. Reynell, Debrett and Fores, and Robinson, 1800.
1: vi
20 January 1824
AT died at eighty-six, after more than thirty years of widowhood.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Biography

Birth and Family

22 February 1737
Ann Ford (later AT ) was born near the Temple in London, an only child.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

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