Catalogue description Anna Seward Letters

A small collection of letters from Anna Seward to Colonel Thomas Dowdeswell and Mrs Dowdeswell of Shrewsbury and Tewkesbury 1791-1804, together with miscellaneous letters including two from her parents 1764, and others from her including a contemporary transcript of a letter to Helen Williams, the author, in Paris 1793. The contents of the letters reveal Seward's thoughts and comments on society in Lichfield, the British Government and its management of the Napoleonic wars, and information about her personal life and her writings.

These letters are available on microfilm and were micropublished by Adam Matthew Publications in 1998.

Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections also holds a letter written by Seward's close Lichfield friend John Saville (ref. LAdd/3504). Letters and literary papers written by Anna Seward can be found in a variety of respositories including the British Library, John Rylands Library, Manchester, Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum, Lichfield, and many other centres.

Seward, Anna, 1742-1809, poet and writer

Access to all registered researchers

The letters to Dowdeswell were purchased in 1968; other letters were purchased in 1971 and 1974 and added to the collection

A full catalogue of this collection is available at http://calmview.bham.ac.uk

Anne, or Anna Seward (1742-1809), the 'Swan of Lichfield', poet and letter writer, was born in Eyam, Derbyshire. She was the only surviving child of Rev Thomas S. Seward (also a poet and Canon of Lichfield from 1754) and his wife, Elizabeth (nee Hunter). In 1780, she drew public notice with elegiac poems on David Garrick and Captain Cook and these were followed by a poem in 1781 about Major Andre (a former suitor of Honora Sneyd who subsequently married Maria Edgeworth's father) and another one in 1782 about Anne Miller. Other publications included her verse novel 'Louisa' (1784), a poem on her friends the Ladies of Llangollen in 1796, her sonnets in 1799, and Memoirs of Erasmus Darwin in 1804. The 'Gentleman's Magazine' also published her versions of Horace's odes and controversial letters - published under the pseudonym 'Benvolio', 1786-87 and then under her own name. She had extensive literary friendships who included Erasmus Darwin and Thomas Day. She left her literary manuscripts to Sir Walter Scott who edited her collected works which were published in three volumes with a memoir in 1810.
Reference: Aristocratic Women: the social, political and cultural history of rich and powerful women. A Listing and Guide to Part 2 of the Microfilm Collection (Adam Matthew Publications, 1998)