Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Anna Mary Howitt
-
Standard Name: Howitt, Anna Mary
Birth Name: Anna Mary Howitt
Nickname: Annie
Married Name: Anna Mary Watts
Pseudonym: A. M.
Pseudonym: A. M. H. W.
Anna Mary Howitt
was connected on the one hand with the social and publishing circles of her parents, the hard-working pillars of the London literary establishment, and on the other hand with a group of forward-looking, feminist women of her own age. She was most productive, both as writer and painter, during the 1850s. Her pictures included delicate landscapes and ambitious history paintings. Her written output runs the gamut through journalism, translation, letters, poetry, a travel book, children's stories, and memoirs.
Herstein, Sheila R. A Mid-Victorian Feminist: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Yale University Press.
97
Cultural formation
Camilla Crosland
In 1854 CC
began practising spiritualism, as her husband too did later. The couple, together with their medium, hosted a number of séances. In her autobiography CC
recalls that Anna Mary Howitt
was a very...
Family and Intimate relationships
Mary Howitt
MH
's first child to be delivered alive, her daughter Anna Mary
, was born on 15 January 1824. She grew up to become a writer and artist.
Dunicliff, Joy. Mary Howitt: Another Lost Victorian Writer. Excalibur Press of London.
95
Family and Intimate relationships
Mary Howitt
Their eldest daughter Anna Mary
frequently visited her parents after they settled abroad. She was at her father's deathbed.
Friends, Associates
Bessie Rayner Parkes
Beginning in 1854, BRP
and Barbara Leigh Smith participated in a society called the Portfolio Club in order to exhibit and share comment on their own and other women's artistic and literary creations. Other members...
Around this time she became aware of her brother Dante Gabriel
's involvement with Elizabeth Siddal
, although she and Siddal met only in 1854 and were never intimate friends. Close family friends of Christina...
Friends, Associates
Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Of her diverse network of friends, BLSB
wrote to an aunt in 1857, I am one of the cracked people of the world, and I like to herd with the cracked such as A.M.H. [...
While recovering from illness in HastingsES
visited Barbara Leigh Smith
and Anna Mary Howitt
at Smith's nearby cottage, Scalands in Sussex.
Marsh, Jan, and Pamela Gerrish Nunn. Pre-Raphaelite Women Artists. Manchester City Art Galleries.
103
Intertextuality and Influence
Christina Rossetti
In From the Antique, a dramatic lyric composed on 28 June 1854,
Rossetti, Christina. The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti. Editor Crump, Rebecca W., Louisiana State University Press.
3: 449
CR
's speaker laments: It's a weary life, it is: she said:— Doubly blank in a woman's lot: I wish...
Occupation
Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Barbara Leigh Smith
(later BLSB
) and Anna Mary Howitt
were engrossed in painting and poetry.
Herstein, Sheila R. A Mid-Victorian Feminist: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Yale University Press.
96
Occupation
John Ruskin
Having begun to publish in the 1830s, when he became a champion of J. W. Turner
against established styles of painting, JR
made his name and created a sensation with the appearance of the first...
politics
Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
At the meeting the female members of the first Married Women's Property Committee
confirmed the text of BLSB
's parliamentary petition and planned for a signature crusade and then for the presentation of the petition...
Timeline
1854: Artists Anna Mary Howitt and Barbara Leigh...
Building item
1854
Artists Anna Mary Howitt
and Barbara Leigh Smith
were invited to join the Pre-Raphaelite Portfolio Club
, a group which offered critical appraisals of members' work.
December 1855: Barbara Leigh Smith, later Bodichon, founded...
