Anna Jane Vardill

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AJV was an early nineteenth-century poet. She published only two collections; most of her work appeared in the European Magazine, with which her strong connection lasted from 1809 until her marriage in 1822. She wrote most genres popular at the time: occasional poems, narratives (often in series), elegies, and poems about public events and developments in science.
  • BirthName: Anna Jane Vardill
  • Nickname: Variella
    De Montluzin, Emily Lorraine. Attributions of Authorship in the European Magazine, 1782-1826. 2007, http://bsuva.org/bsuva/euromag/.
    Variella was also the name of a character in John Till Allingham 's 1805 play The Weathercock, who is described by Peter Cochran as a shape-changing, disguise-addicted girl. This nickname could possibly be a play on Vardill's mimicry and genre-shifting.
    Byron, George Gordon, sixth Baron. “Peter Cochran’s Website”. Byron’s early poems of Nottinghamshire and London, edited by Peter Cochran and Peter Cochran.
    16

  • Married: Niven
  • Pseudonyms: A young lady, daughter of a Freemason; V.; Cobweb
    Flaxman letters in the British Library show that Vardill used the name Cobweb for her Attic Chest poems; since Mary Ann Flaxman called herself Moth, it seems that they took their names from fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream.William Shakespeare
    Snell, Susan. “Enlightenment Females and Freemasonry”. Journal for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism, Vol.
    4
    , No. 1-2, 2013.

Photograph of a drawing of Anna Jane Vardill, shown from the waist up, wearing a black dress that crosses at the bust, and has short puffed sleeves. Her dark hair is pulled back, with braids wrapped around the front and curls at the top. Behind her is a large column and a vase carved with people's faces displayed on a pedestal. The circular photograph is contained within a gold frame, and the name "Mrs. Niven" is written underneath it.

Milestones

19 November 1781

AJV , an only child, was born in London. She was baptised in Marylebone just over a month later.
Ancestry.co.uk. http://www.ancestry.co.uk.

9 February 1797

The pupils at the Freemasons' Female Charity performed a work of poetry composed by the fifteen-year-old AJV , to music by Dr Samuel Arnold .
Snell, Susan. Poetry by Women in the Freemasons’ Magazine, vols 1 - 11, 1793 - 1798. 16 Sept. 2016.

April 1815

The European Magazine printed AJV 's Christobell, A Gothic Tale, a sequel to Coleridge 's Christabel. Vardill's poem was for years an unsolved conundrum for scholars, since it appeared in print before Coleridge's.
Axon, William E. A., and Ernest Hartley Coleridge. “Anna Jane Vardill Niven, the Authoress of ’Christobell,’ the Sequel to Coleridge’s ’Christabel.’ With a Bibliography. With an Additional Note on ’Christabel’”. Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, Vol.
2nd series 28
, 1970, pp. 57-88.
57

31 December 1830

Anna Jane Niven, formerly Vardill , addressed to her five-year-old daughter a letter covering the gift of manuscripts from Eleanor Anne Porden 's Attic Chest, and three linked and recent articles: A Little Girl's Law-Book, A Young Lady's Law-Book, and An Old Lawyer's Legends.
Axon, William E. A., and Ernest Hartley Coleridge. “Anna Jane Vardill Niven, the Authoress of ’Christobell,’ the Sequel to Coleridge’s ’Christabel.’ With a Bibliography. With an Additional Note on ’Christabel’”. Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, Vol.
2nd series 28
, 1970, pp. 57-88.
77-8 and n

October 1834

John Abraham Heraud published in Fraser's Magazine his Reminiscences of Coleridge; in a detailed discussion of Christobell, A Gothic Tale, he inclined to the view that it was the work of Coleridge , not AJV .
qtd. in
Haven, Richard. “Anna Vardill Niven’s ’Christobell’: An Addendum”. The Wordsworth Circle, Vol.
7
, No. 2, 1 Mar.–31 May 1976, pp. 117-18.
117

4 June 1852

Anna Jane Niven , formerly Vardill, died in Yorkshire.
Ancestry.co.uk. http://www.ancestry.co.uk.
Axon, William E. A., and Ernest Hartley Coleridge. “Anna Jane Vardill Niven, the Authoress of ’Christobell,’ the Sequel to Coleridge’s ’Christabel.’ With a Bibliography. With an Additional Note on ’Christabel’”. Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, Vol.
2nd series 28
, 1970, pp. 57-88.
75

26 February 1908

William E. A. Axon read to a meeting of the Royal Society of Literature a paper about AJV , offering previously unknown information about her and her poem Christobell, A Gothic Tale, and debunking the argument that the true author was Coleridge .
Axon, William E. A., and Ernest Hartley Coleridge. “Anna Jane Vardill Niven, the Authoress of ’Christobell,’ the Sequel to Coleridge’s ’Christabel.’ With a Bibliography. With an Additional Note on ’Christabel’”. Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, Vol.
2nd series 28
, 1970, pp. 57-88.
57

Biography

Birth and Family

19 November 1781

AJV , an only child, was born in London. She was baptised in Marylebone just over a month later.
Ancestry.co.uk. http://www.ancestry.co.uk.

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