Anna Seward

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Standard Name: Seward, Anna
Birth Name: Anna Seward
Nickname: The Swan of Lichfield
Nickname: Nancy
AS , living at a distance from London, was nevertheless a woman of letters, of the later eighteenth century and just beyond. She staked her claim to fame firstly on her poetry (though she was always willing to try genres unusual to her, like sermons and a biography of Erasmus Darwin ), secondly on her letters. In these and in her newspaper contributions she was also a literary critic, familiar with the criteria of both the Augustan and Romantic eras and gifted besides with an unfailing independence of judgement.
Photograph of a painting of Anna Seward by Tilly Kettle, 1762. Seward is seated at a desk with a little book of Milton's poetry in front of her. She is wearing a white gauzy bodice with wide sleeves, a deep pink mantle edged with brown fur, and a black ribbon and a string of pearls as a choker around her neck. Her dark hair is pinned on top of her head with a pearl ornament. National Portrait Gallery.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Cultural formation Mary Delany
In Sister Arts: The Erotics of Lesbian Landscapes, 2011, Lisa L. Moore classified MD , along with the Duchess of Portland , Anna Seward , and the American Sarah Pierce (1767-1852), as lesbian-like women...
Cultural formation Mary Scott
MS grew up in a prosperous, middle-class household, in which religion was the centre of everyday life and activity. Most sources agree that her family were Protestant Dissenters.
Though Anna Seward said they were Anglicans
death Mary Scott
Anna Seward addressed her an anxious letter dated 10 September, obviously having not yet learned about her death.
Seward, Anna. Letters of Anna Seward. Editor Constable, Archibald, Vol.
6 vols.
, A. Constable, 1811, 6 vols.
3: 310
death Anna Miller
She was buried in Bath Abbey, with a poetic epitaph by Anna Seward .
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Dedications Margaret Holford
The elder Margaret Holford published with her name, through the Minerva Press , First Impressions; or, The Portrait. A Novel, in four volumes, dedicated to Anna Seward .
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press, 2000, 2 vols.
2: 135-6
Dedications Margaret Holford
Published by Hookham and Carpenter , this was a slim volume of 44 pages, with a title-page quotation from Pope 's Windsor Forest, and a handsome illustration of Gresford Lodge near Wrexham in Denbighshire...
Education Mary Scott
Little is known of MS 's education, but her correspondence with Anna Seward suggests familiarity with both classic and recent literature. Further, the knowledge she displays in The Female Advocate of women's writing in particular...
Family and Intimate relationships Mary Scott
MS 's father was a linen manufacturer, a Dissenter according to most accounts, and a zealous supporter of the civil and religious liberties of Protestant dissenters. Among his brothers was the Rev. Russell Scott ...
Family and Intimate relationships Fanny Holcroft
Thomas Holcroft held progressive ideas about women and their education, as he showed in 1794 in a brief review of Miss or Mrs. C. Short 's Dramas for the Use of Young Ladies (to which...
Fictionalization Frances Burney
Bibliographer James Raven notes a crescendo in novelistic echoes of FB 's works during the 1780s. Burney's brother Charles , for instance, noted borrowings from both Evelina and Cecilia in his review for the Monthly...
Friends, Associates Mary Martha Sherwood
MMS judged Anna Seward to be greedy for flattery, especially from the opposite sex. In 1799 she met Hannah More , who was then at the height of her fame and to whom admittance was...
Friends, Associates Margaret Holford
MH 's friends were said to include Anna Seward .
She is not mentioned in Teresa Barnard 's biography of Seward.
After her eldest daughter became famous and developed a correspondence with Joanna Baillie ...
Friends, Associates Melesina Trench
In England and (especially) Ireland her friends (with whom she kept up largely by correspondence) included a number of other amateur writers: Mary Leadbeater (from 1802), Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby (the Ladies of...
Friends, Associates Henrietta Maria Bowdler
Frances Burney preferred HMB , as more kind and gentle, to her sister Frances Bowdler. Burney amusingly records a visit by herself, HMB and others, to Lady Miller of Batheaston on 8 June 1780, when...
Friends, Associates Frances Jacson
The Jacson sisters became acquainted with the literary circle in Lichfield which also included Erasmus Darwin , Anna Seward , and Thomas Day , as well as their cousin Sir Brooke Boothby , who probably introduced them there.
Shteir, Ann B. “Botanical Dialogues: Maria Jacson and Women’s Popular Science Writing in England”. Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
23
, No. 3, 1 Mar.–31 May 1990, pp. 301-17.
308

Timeline

1770: The Lichfield Circle began to develop at...

Building item

1770

The Lichfield Circle began to develop at Lichfield in Staffordshire; the group advocated reform of women's education away from time-filling accomplishments such as japanning and toward intellectual learning.
Rourke, Sherri. The Lichfield Circle and Female Education. University of Alberta, 1985.
7-33

16 December 1773: Citizens dumped 340 chests of tea into the...

National or international item

16 December 1773

Citizens dumped 340 chests of tea into the harbour at Boston, Massachusetts, to protest duty imposed by the Tea Act of 10 May; this became known as the Boston Tea Party.
Newman, Gerald, editor. Britain in the Hanoverian Age, 1714-1837: An Encyclopedia. Garland, 1997.
68, 695

1782: George Romney painted a picture to illustrate...

Women writers item

1782

George Romney painted a picture to illustrate (after the fact) William Hayley 'a Triumphs of Temper, 1781: Serena, reading Burney 's Evelina. The model was Honora Sneyd .
Brewer, John. The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Farrar Straus Giroux, 1997.
607, 609

1785: William Hayley published his Philosophical,...

Writing climate item

1785

William Hayley published his Philosophical, Historical and Moral Essay on Old Maids; most women readers agreed with Anna Seward that the book displayed witty, but ungenerous sport of fancy.
Seward, Anna. Letters of Anna Seward. Editor Constable, Archibald, Vol.
6 vols.
, A. Constable, 1811, 6 vols.
I: 147
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
61 (1786): 189

April 1789: The Gentleman's Magazine published Anna Seward's...

Women writers item

April 1789

The Gentleman's Magazine published Anna Seward 's selection of living celebrated Female Poets.
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
59 (1789): 292

By June 1796: Samuel Taylor Coleridge compiled a booklet...

Writing climate item

By June 1796

Samuel Taylor Coleridge compiled a booklet titled Sonnets from Various Authors: four each by himself, Southey , Charles Lamb , and Charles Lloyd , two by Charlotte Smith , and one each by seven...

1801: Philip James de Loutherbourg painted Coalbrookdale...

Building item

1801

Philip James de Loutherbourg painted Coalbrookdale by Night, a theatrically romantic picture of a famous industrial village: houses perched on the valley cliffs, with a clouded sky glaring red from furnaces.
“A Picture of Britain”. Tate Britain, 2005.

December 1802: The Critical Review extolled the quality...

Women writers item

December 1802

The Critical Review extolled the quality of contemporary women's poetry: Miss Seward , Mrs Barbauld , Charlotte Smith , will take their place among the English poets for centuries to come.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
2nd ser. 36 (1802): 413

1804: The publisher George, George, and John Robinson,...

Writing climate item

1804

The publisher George, George, and John Robinson , whose list of women writers had been distinguished, went bankrupt.
Burney, Sarah Harriet. The Letters of Sarah Harriet Burney. Editor Clark, Lorna J., University of Georgia Press, 1997.
93 n1

9 June 1819: The library of the late Queen Charlotte was...

Building item

9 June 1819

The library of the late Queen Charlotte was auctioned by Christie's ; it included Jane Austen 's works, plus titles by Catherine Cuthbertson , Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire , Christian Isobel Johnstone , Alethea Lewis

Texts

Seward, Anna. Anna Seward’s Journal and Sermons. Editor Barnard, Teresa, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017.
Seward, Anna. Blindness. J. Montgomery, 1806.
Seward, Anna. Elegy on Captain Cook. J. Dodsley, 1780.
Seward, Anna. Letters of Anna Seward. Editor Constable, Archibald, Vol.
6 vols.
, A. Constable, 1811, 6 vols.
Seward, Anna. Llangollen Vale, with Other Poems. G. Sael, 1796.
Seward, Anna. Louisa. J. Jackson and G. Robinson, 1784.
Seward, Anna et al. “Memoirs of Abelard and Eloisa”. Letters of Abelard and Eloisa, translated by. John, 1677 - 1720 Hughes and John, 1677 - 1720 Hughes, J. Mitchell, 1805.
Seward, Anna. Memoirs of the Life of Dr. Darwin. J. Johnson, 1804.
Seward, Anna. Monody on Major André. Printed and sold by J. Jackson, for the author, 1781.
Seward, Anna. Original Sonnets on various Subjects and Odes paraphrased from Horace. G. Sael, 1799.
Seward, Anna, and Wally Chamberlain Oulton. The Beauties of Anna Seward. C. Chapple, 1813.
Seward, Anna. The Poetical Works of Anna Seward. Editor Scott, Sir Walter, J. Ballantyne, 1810, 3 vols.