Anna Maria Bennett

01 January 1750 - 12 February 1808

Standard Name: Bennett, Anna Maria

Birth Name: Anna Maria Evans

Married Name: Anna Maria Bennett

Used Form: Mrs Bennett

Used Form: the author of Anna

AMB 's novels are remarkably bold for the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century (as well as skilful) in their handling of controversial sexual and social themes (like class issues, and sexual abuse). Her works, however, grew increasingly long-winded, perhaps under the pressure of the need to earn. They are a virtual anthology of the favoured motifs of the sentimental novel, yet they are also rich in almost Dickensian satire.

Full profile

Connections

Connections Sort descending	Author name	Excerpt
Dedications	Margaret Croker	The work was printed in London by Lloyd and Booth , and dedicated to the Duchess of York (who also patronised Anna Maria Bennett and Isabella Kelly ).
Friends, Associates	Eliza Parsons	Evidence of friendship between these two novelists is interesting because Parsons was a model of respectability while association with Robinson could potentially damage another woman's reputation. At this date Robinson (who had only another five...
Friends, Associates	Mary Robinson	MR remained devoted to the idea of female friendship. She met the artist Maria Cosway in France and they became firm friends. In her last months she wrote to the novelist Elizabeth Gunning to sympathise...
Intertextuality and Influence	Mrs F. C. Patrick	The narrative is at first somewhat flat-footed in its insistence that this is not a novel, but it acquires further flavour whenever the old gentleman telling it becomes self-referential. His daughter, he says, acts the...
Publishing	Helena Wells	It was issued by Cadell and Davies , with title-page reference to The Step-Mother and a quotation from Akenside on virtue as a source of happiness. HW 's preface, composed while living in Westminster...
Textual Features	Mary Julia Young	MJY 's poem, in fast-moving heroic couplets, opens with Genius invoking the aid of Fancy. Fancy insists that the most beautiful and versatile of the muses is Thalia (who presides over comedy). After urging the...
Textual Features	Mary Julia Young	MJY foregrounds her own friendship with Anna Maria Crouch, and finds room for such details as the opinions of Crouch's father, Peregrine Phillips , about novelists: he admired Charlotte Smith , Anna Maria Bennett ,...
Textual Features	Anna Maria Mackenzie	AMM 's opening address To the Readers of Modern Romance says that ancient romance was put paid to by the new source of amusement . . . struck out by Henry Fielding and Richardson (to...
Textual Production	Eliza Parsons	She gave her name as Mrs. Parsons on the title-page and signed the dedication with both her names. Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press. 1: 512 A title-page epigraph reads: Brutus said Virtue was but a name—tis more. ....
Textual Production	Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson	There was published by W. Mason in two volumes The Spectre of Lanmere Abbey, or The Mystery of the Blue and Silver Bag; A Romance, with SSW 's name. Her name appears, as usual...

Timeline

1769

The Town and Country Magazine; or Universal Repository of Knowledge, Instruction, and Entertainment began publication; it ran until 1795.

15 February 1791

The actress Harriet Pye Esten (daughter of novelist Anna Maria Bennett ) gave a highly successful recitation at Covent Garden Theatre of William Collins 's Ode on the Passions.

August 1813

The Critical Review published its first welcome to Eaton Stannard Barrett 's famous parody of sentimental novels, The Heroine, or Adventures of the Fair Romance Reader.

Texts

Bennett, Anna Maria. Agnes De-Courci. S. Hazard, 1789.

Bennett, Anna Maria. Anna. Minerva Press, 1785.

Bennett, Anna Maria. Ellen, Countess of Castle Howel. Minerva Press, 1794.

Bennett, Anna Maria. Juvenile Indiscretions. Minerva Press, 1786.

Bennett, Anna Maria. The Beggar Girl and Her Benefactors. Minerva Press, 1797.

Bennett, Anna Maria. Vicissitudes Abroad. Minerva Press, 1806.