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
Friends, Associates Frances Brooke
As a result of her friendship with the musicologist Charles Burney (1726-1814), FB became a friend of his daughter Frances as well.
McMullen, Lorraine. An Odd Attempt in a Woman: The Literary Life of Frances Brooke. University of British Columbia Press.
135
Frances Burney liked Brooke, but was worried at her close friendship with...
Friends, Associates Frances Brooke
Hannah More and Anna Seward were among the invited guests. The anecdotalist Baptist Noel Turner later related from FB 's own mouth a story of Johnson asking her to withdraw from the others so that...
Friends, Associates Mary Scott
MS was probably a friend from an early age of the dissenting hymn-writer Anne Steele , who lived not very far away and who was a generation older. They spent much time together in 1773...
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, pp. 301-17.
308
Friends, Associates Maria Elizabetha Jacson
Probably through their cousin Sir Brooke Boothby , the Jacson sisters became acquainted with an intellectually-minded group of people of both sexes based in Lichfield: Erasmus Darwin as well as Anna Seward and Thomas Day
Friends, Associates Helen Maria Williams
There she began to frequent Elizabeth Montagu 's bluestocking circle. She was introduced in cultural circles by Andrew Kippis , minister of the church her family attended, and soon knew William Hayley , Sarah Siddons
Friends, Associates Ann Jebb
A particular sparring partner of AJ , who would attack her boldest reasoning, with his quaint and lively repartees, was the young William Paley , later an eminent theologian.
Meadley, George William. “Memoir of Mrs. Jebb”. The Monthly Repository, Vol.
7
, pp. 597 - 604, 661.
598
She formed another close and...
Friends, Associates Lady Eleanor Butler
Among their many visitors (apart from the local gentry, with whom they duly established links), close friends included Anna Seward , Henrietta Maria Bowdler (who wrote mock-flirtatiously of LEB as her veillard [sic] or old...
Friends, Associates Anne Steele
AS evidently chose her friends at least partly for their literary interests, since they included three publishing women of a younger generation—Hannah More , Anna Seward , and (a closer friend than the first...
Friends, Associates J. S. Anna Liddiard
She wrote that Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby , the Ladies of Llangollen, treated her with very kind and flattering attention when she visited them.
Liddiard, J. S. Anna. Kenilworth and Farley Castle: with Other Poems. Hibernia–Press Office.
prelims
She may perhaps have known Anna Seward
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Pipe Wolferstan
Samuel Pipe Wolferstan"s friends included Erasmus Darwin , Anna Seward , Thomas Gisborne , and the novelist Robert Bage . Of EPW 's own friends, Mary Gresley was seriously pursued by her husband before he married Elizabeth.
Wolferstan, Elizabeth Pipe. “Preface”. Agatha, edited by John Goss.
forthcoming
Friends, Associates Jane Cave
It is possible, though this is speculative, that JC became acquainted while living at Winchester with the hymn-writer Anne Steele (who lived not far away), with Anna Seward and Hannah More (who were friends of...
Friends, Associates Mary Hays
In later life she was friendly with Penelope Pennington (with whom she stayed at Bristol) and Hester Piozzi , Anna Seward , and Hannah More , whom she met there.
Hays, Mary. “Chronology and Introduction”. The Correspondence (1779-1843) of Mary Hays, British Novelist, edited by Marilyn Brooks, Edwin Mellen, pp. xv - xx; 1.
xvii
Friends, Associates Mary Tighe
MT visited Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby , the Ladies of Llangollen, and met Anna Seward at their house.
Mavor, Elizabeth. The Ladies of Llangollen. Michael Joseph.
126
Health Ann Radcliffe
Rictor Norton believes that AR may have suffered a nervous breakdown in 1803, after finishing Gaston de Blondeville, and another in late 1812, after the publishing of Anna Seward 's letters alleging that she...

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