Anna Seward (1747–1809)

Anna Seward was the daughter of Thomas Seward, a clergyman, and his wife Elizabeth Hunter. Anna was well-educated at home, and read French, Italian, and Latin. It was a literary household, as her father was also an author. She began writing poetry at a young age, circulating her poems among friends and publishing in periodicals. She never married, and after her mother's death continued to live with her father, who was made Canon of Lichfield. She befriended the Ladies of Llangollen, Lady Eleanor Butler and Hon. Sarah Ponsonby, who were famous for setting up house together in Wales. She became a well-known Romantic poet and novelist, and her work earned praise from Dr. Samuel Johnson, among others. She had a wide circle of literary correspondents, and her prolific letters show a less conventional side than her poetry, revealing her feminist views and criticism of marriage. One of her admirers nicknamed Anna the "Swan of Lichfield," and Erasmus Darwin called her "the inventress of epic elegy." She bequeathed her writing to Sir Walter Scott, and after her death he published three volumes with his own introduction as The Poetical Works of Anna Seward with Extracts from Her Letter and Literary Correspondence (1810).