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.
AS
exchanged occasional poems over the span of her life with other women in her circle of correspondents: primarily her sister Mary Steele, later Wakeford
, whom she called Amira, but also her niece...
Textual Production
Lady Eleanor Butler
LEB
and Sarah Ponsonby
wrote some of their voluminous correspondence jointly. Writing was one of their major pleasures; they selected paper with loving care, and kept an equally careful tally of replies received and of...
Textual Production
Margaret Holford
Having been writing verse from the age of eight, and publishing a volume of short poems in her thirties, Margaret Holford the younger included one piece of which she flags the date (when she was...
Textual Production
Ann Radcliffe
AR
was much upset when on the first, anonymous appearance of Joanna Baillie
's Plays on the Passions she was suspected of being the author: especially when she later learned that Anna Seward
, for...
Textual Production
Eglinton Wallace
It appeared in two different editions put out this year through the different publishers T. Hookham
, and Debrett
. The Debrett edition lists the price, one shilling and sixpence, on the title-page.
“Eighteenth Century Collections Online”. Gale Databases.
Goethe's novel...
Textual Production
Catherine Fanshawe
The letters that CF
sent to Anne Grant
are not extant, but Grant's side of the correspondence leaves no doubt that the two were in constant dialogue about new books they had read, and their...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Melesina Trench
About the first twenty pages are occupied by MT
's early reminiscences, probably written not long after her first husband's death: she frankly recorded her emotional disturbance over that event.
Trench, Melesina. The Remains of the Late Mrs. Richard Trench. Editor Trench, Richard Chenevix, Second edition, revised, Parker and Bourn, 1862.
18
Later pages mix letters...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Anne Grant
This contains autobiographical fragments and insightful comments on other women writers. Objects of AG
's comment include Susan Ferrier
, Charlotte Smith
(whose poems AG
felt to be easy, flowing, and correct, but low on...
Howe, Susanne. Geraldine Jewsbury: Her Life and Errors. George Allen and Unwin, 1935.
72
Beginning in...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Alice Meynell
Many of the essays reprinted here focus on women writers who were, to put it mildly, little known to the public in the 1940s. These included: Anna Seward
and Joanna Baillie
, as well as...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Jane West
JW
includes some juvenile work in this collection (a poem on Easter and another, written at her mother's request, beginning Thou sweet composer of earth-nurtur'd care, Sweet Poesy!
Feminist Companion Archive.
), and a piece reprinted from a...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Sarah Pearson
The poem picked out by the Critical Review as the principal one, occupying fourteen pages, is entitled Lines found on the Stairs of the Tour de la Chapelle of the Bastile. These lines, powerful...
