Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Anna Seward
-
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.
Art historian Richard James Wheeler
, a strong supporter of the Rice portrait, also argued that a watercolour sketch by James Stanier Clarke
, the Prince of Wales's librarian (a full-length portrait of only six...
Textual Features
Joanna Baillie
The poems present human shifts of mood and quirks of feeling. They are sensitively observed and charmingly written. The only modern poets she yet knew of to admire, JB
said later, were William Hayley
and...
Elfenbein, Andrew. Romantic Genius: The Prehistory of a Homosexual Role. Columbia University Press.
143
The Poetical Register praised the volume for poetical...
Literary responses
Anna Letitia Barbauld
William Enfield
quoted eight lines from Aikin (as Our Poetess) in dedicating his very popular anthology The Speaker, designed for the teaching of elocution, to the head of Warrington Academy
. Her volume...
Literary responses
Anna Letitia Barbauld
Literary admirers of the hymns included Hannah More
, Anna Seward
, and Elizabeth Carter
, who found some passages amazingly sublime.
McCarthy, William. Anna Letitia Barbauld, Voice of the Enlightenment. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
EOB
writes in terms of a women's tradition: for instance, she praises Barbauld
for praising Elizabeth Rowe
. She makes confident judgements and attributions (she is sure that Lady Pakington
is the real author 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...
Publishing
Charlotte Brooke
Her father had cherished a never-executed project for a history of ancient Irish literature.
Ashley, Leonard R. N. et al. “Introduction”. Reliques of Irish Poetry, Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, p. v - xv.
vi
She had issued Proposals for this work the year before publication. The Houghton Library
copy of the Proposals incorporates a...
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...
Literary responses
Frances Brooke
FB
was listed by the Monthly Review as one of the nine British Muses in April 1774. Anna Seward
in 1796 recorded her preference of the lively Brooke to Frances Burney
, of whom each...
Textual Production
Mary Bryan
The preface to the work writhes between expression and suppression. MB
alternately fears being blamed for vanity or presumption
Bryan, Mary, and Jonathan Wordsworth. Sonnets and Metrical Tales 1815. Woodstock Books.
viii
and hints at her ambition, citing Charlotte Smith
. She admires Smith for having succeeded...
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...
Leisure and Society
Lady Eleanor Butler
They treated the house like a smaller version of an ancestral family estate. They added various improvements, like the library at the back, which had windows in pointed gothic arches, paintings and miniatures on the...
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...
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.
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.
1782: George Romney painted a picture to illustrate...
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.
I: 147
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.
By June 1796: Samuel Taylor Coleridge compiled a booklet...
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.
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.
1804: The publisher George, George, and John Robinson,...
