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.
The Poetical Register damned this volume with faint praise, as not disfigured by any gross faults. In the preface to her next work, JSAL
took issue with the Monthly's yet more unflattering notice, which...
Reception
Héloïse
Anna Seward
's Memoirs of Abelard and Eloisa, 1805, certainly ranks as scholarship, though it concerns itself more with reputation and afterlife than with the actual life or writings of Héloïse
. From the...
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...
Publishing
Helen Maria Williams
HMW
published her Poem on the Bill Lately Passed for Regulating the Slave Trade. (The bill was that of Sir William Dolben
.) She sent a copies of her poem to Robert Burns
(who...
Publishing
Elizabeth Hands
The advertisement for the book in print, like the pre-notification, was carried by Jopson's Coventry Mercury. The volume was dedicated to the dramatist Bertie Greatheed
. It was issued in two forms: ordinary copies...
It appeared in two volumes from Cadell
. It was advertised in March, and in April Williams sent a copy to Anna Seward
.
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press.
1: 519
Michael-Johnston, Georgina. Helen Maria Williams: Liberty, Sensibility, and Education. University of Alberta.
149, 156
A prefatory Advertisement says that her materials...
Publishing
Mary Scott
The Gentleman's Magazine printed MS
's Verses Addressed to Miss Seward
, on the Publication of her Monody on Major André.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Publishing
Mary Martha Sherwood
MMS
wrote later, It was a matter of course to me that I was to write, and also a matter of instinct. My head was always busy in inventions, and it was a delight to...
Occupation
Anna Miller
The Batheaston Vase was important in several literary careers, notably those of Anna Seward
, Jane Bowdler
, and Mary Alcock
. Other winners, like Jane Johnson
's daughter Barbara
, seem never to have...
Literary responses
Anne Finch
Barbara McGovern
has disposed (hopefully once and for all) of the mistaken story of Pope
's hostility to AF
. In fact, they shared a literary friendship which Finch found valuable.
McGovern, Barbara. Anne Finch and Her Poetry: A Critical Biography. University of Georgia Press.
102ff
She also addressed...
Literary responses
Amelia Opie
The Critical Review introduced its laudatory notice by praising the current standard of women's poetry (a tradition, it says, less than a century old). It invokes the canonical names of Seward
, Barbauld
, and...
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...
Literary responses
Charlotte Smith
Anna Seward
included CS
in her list of living celebrated Female Poets
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
(1789): 292
but spoiled the effect by mistakenly calling her Catherine.
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
(1789): 292
Literary responses
Anne Grant
Letters from the Mountains was not noticed in the Edinburgh Review, an omission which Grant attributed to gender prejudice.
Perkins, Pamela. “Anne Grant and the Professionalization of Privacy”. Authorship, Commerce and the Public: Scenes of Writing, 1750-1850, edited by Emma Clery et al., Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 29-43.
32
The Critical gave it a brutal review, which began by turning seriously against the...
