She worked on this novel through a recurrence of ill health: sleeplessness, neuralgia, and a failure of vitality. She dedicated it to Hyacinthe, Lady Dalby
, who had supplied the material for A Garland of...
Health
Eliza Parsons
Splinters of bone were still at that time working their way out through her skin. She believed that the physician John Hunter
(uncle of Joanna Baillie
) saved her life.
Parsons, Eliza. Letter to William Windham, 14 May [1794]. http://BL Add M3 37914.
Family and Intimate relationships
Anna Seward
A family story related that AS
's grandfather John Hunter
, who became Samuel Johnson
's schoolmaster, had begun life as a foundling.
Ashmun, Margaret. The Singing Swan. Yale University Press; H. Milford, Oxford University Press.
