Anna Eliza Bray

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Standard Name: Bray, Anna Eliza
Birth Name: Anna Eliza Kempe
Married Name: Anna Eliza Stothard
Married Name: Anna Eliza Bray
Nickname: Eliza
Used Form: Mrs Bray
Used Form: Mrs Charles Stothard
Used Form: the author of De Foix
AEB first reached print with a collection of letters, the first of two which appeared over the course of her career. During fifty-four years, she published twelve novels, and twelve historical and biographical works. She edited several posthumous works by others and also produced writing for children. Many of her works were inspired by historical events or figures as well as by English folklore and legend. Some of her novels proved controversial for alleged anti-Catholicism at a time of fierce debate over Catholic Emancipation; much of her fiction and history focuses on Protestant resistance to religious oppression. A popular success during the mid-Victorian period, AEB has of late received little critical attention.
Mudge, Bradford Keyes, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 116. Gale Research.
116: 49
Black-and-white portrait of Anna Eliza Bray in her youth, 1883.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Textual Production Marina Warner
MW published Joan of Arc : The Image of Female Heroism, her study of the legendary Maid of Orleans who became a fearless soldier, a martyr, and eventually a saint.
Warner's biography of Joan...
Textual Features Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna
Pre-eminent among the Protestant heroines treated by Foxe is Anne Askew , whose own texts he includes. Anna Eliza Bray had published a novel inspired by Foxe in 1828.
Friends, Associates Robert Southey
Having early in his life admired writers like Mary Wollstonecraft and Charlotte Smith , he later numbered women writers such as Anna Eliza Bray among his close friends.
Intertextuality and Influence Christina Rossetti
She noted that it was initially titled A Peep at the Goblins in imitation of her cousin Anna Eliza Bray 's recent book, A Peep at the Pixies; Gabriel came up with the title...
Family and Intimate relationships Christina Rossetti
Through her mother CR was also distantly related to writer Anna Eliza Bray .
Marsh, Jan. Christina Rossetti: A Writer’s Life. Viking.
16
Reception Christina Rossetti
The copies printed were distributed among friends and family. They all enjoyed the poems except Christina's brother Gabriel , who somewhat cattily wrote to their mother: I should advise her to console herself with the...
Friends, Associates Amelia Opie
In 1813 she again met de Staël (who was visiting London) and introduced her to Elizabeth Inchbald . Others she met after her husband's death included Richard Brinsley Sheridan , Byron , and Sir Walter Scott
Birth Mary Maria Colling
MMC , poet, was born at Tavistock in Devon, one of a large lower-class family.
Anna Eliza Bray told Robert Southey that MMC was born on this day in 1805; but the church record...
Textual Production Mary Maria Colling
MMC , who was working inTavistock as a domestic servant, sent Anna Eliza Bray a parcel containing several of her poems.
Bray, Anna Eliza, and Mary Maria Colling. “Letters to Robert Southey”. Fables and Other Pieces in Verse by M.M. Colling, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, pp. 1-85.
2-3
Publishing Mary Maria Colling
MMC published (by subscription, arranged by Anna Eliza Bray ) her first and only volume of poetry: Fables and other Pieces in Verse, with a portrait of the author.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
213 (1831): 762
Wright, W. H. Kearley. West-Country Poets: Their Lives and Works. Elliot Stock.
108
Author summary Mary Maria Colling
MMC wrote at Tavistock, where she was employed as a domestic servant, in the earlier nineteenth century. Her poems were collected as Fables and other Pieces in Verse, her only published volume. Novelist...
Family and Intimate relationships Mary Maria Colling
She died when Mary was five years old, bringing her granddaughter a great early sorrow.
Bray, Anna Eliza, and Mary Maria Colling. “Letters to Robert Southey”. Fables and Other Pieces in Verse by M.M. Colling, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, pp. 1-85.
22, 36-7
MMC never saw her grandmother's birth-name written and so its correct spelling is unknown. Anna Eliza Bray speculates...
Occupation Mary Maria Colling
Colling had an amicable relationship with Mrs Hughes. According to the novelist Anna Eliza Bray , she thought her employer grew as fond of her as if she had been her own child.
Bray, Anna Eliza, and Mary Maria Colling. “Letters to Robert Southey”. Fables and Other Pieces in Verse by M.M. Colling, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, pp. 1-85.
6
After...
Health Mary Maria Colling
Anna Eliza Bray later wrote that her friend had a nervous temperament.
Bray, Anna Eliza, and Mary Maria Colling. “Letters to Robert Southey”. Fables and Other Pieces in Verse by M.M. Colling, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, pp. 1-85.
8
In a letter to Robert Southey , Bray reported that Colling admitted to being assailed by envy and malice, on account...
Friends, Associates Mary Maria Colling
Anna Eliza Bray first noticed MMC sometime in or just before 1827, when she spotted her in Tavistock church: a young woman, of the humbler class, dressed exceedingly neat, and remarkable on account of the...

Timeline

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Texts

Bray, Anna Eliza. A Description of the Part of Devonshire Bordering on the Tamar and the Tavy. John Murray, 1836.
Bray, Anna Eliza, and Hablot Knight Browne. A Peep at the Pixies. Grant and Griffith, 1854.
Bray, Anna Eliza. Autobiography of Anna Eliza Bray. Editor Kempe, John A., Chapman and Hall, 1884.
Bray, Anna Eliza. Courtenay of Walreddon. Bentley, 1844.
Bray, Anna Eliza. De Foix. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1826.
Colling, Mary Maria, and Anna Eliza Bray. Fables and Other Pieces in Verse by M.M. Colling. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1831.
Bray, Anna Eliza. Hartland Forest. Longman, Green, 1871.
Bray, Anna Eliza. “Introduction”. Autobiography of Anna Eliza Bray, edited by John A. Kempe, Chapman and Hall, 1884, pp. 1-36.
Bray, Anna Eliza. Joan of Arc and the Times of Charles the Seventh, King of France. Griffith and Farran, 1874.
Bray, Anna Eliza, and Mary Maria Colling. “Letters to Robert Southey”. Fables and Other Pieces in Verse by M.M. Colling, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1831, pp. 1-85.
Bray, Anna Eliza. Letters Written during a Tour through Normandy, Brittany, and Other Parts of France in 1818. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1820.
Bray, Edward Atkyns. Poetical Remains, Social, Sacred, and Miscellaneous. Editor Bray, Anna Eliza, Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1859.
Bray, Anna Eliza. The Life of Thomas Stothard, R.A., with Personal Reminiscences. J. Murray, 1851.
Stothard, Charles Alfred. The Monumental Effigies of Great Britian. Editors Bray, Anna Eliza and Alfred Kempe, John Murray, 1832.
Bray, Anna Eliza. The Novels and Romances of Anna Eliza Bray. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1846.
Bray, Anna Eliza. The Novels, Historical, Legendary and Romantic. Chapman and Hall, 1884.
Bray, Anna Eliza. The Protestant. Colburn, 1828.
Bray, Anna Eliza. The Revolt of the Protestants of the Cévennes. J. Murray, 1870.
Bray, Anna Eliza. The White Hoods. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1828.
Bray, Anna Eliza. Trelawny of Trelawne. Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1837.
Bray, Anna Eliza. Trials of the Heart. Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1839.
Bray, Anna Eliza. Warleigh. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1834.