Anna Seward

Anna Seward , 1742-1809, English poet, called the Swan of Lichfield. A member of the Lichfield literary group, which included Thomas Day and Erasmus Darwin, she was acquainted also with Dr. Johnson and James Boswell. She bequeathed her literary works to Sir Walter Scott, who edited them (3 vol., 1810).

Bibliography: See selected letters, with short biography (ed. by H. Pearson, 1936).

Seward, Anna (1742–1809), poet, essayist, and letter writer, born in Eyam, Derbyshire, known as the ‘Swan of Lichfield’, where she lived from the age of 10. Her grandfather John Hunter had taught the young Dr Johnson, and she furnished Boswell with many details of his early life, while admitting that she did not much care for him. Her poems included Elegy on Captain Cook (1780), Llangollen Vale, with Other Poems (1796), and Original Sonnets (1799). Her literary friends included E. Darwin (of whom she wrote a memoir, 1804), T. Day, and Hayley. She wrote an admiring letter to Sir W. Scott, who found some merit in her poetry and edited her works in three vols, with a memoir, in 1810, at her suggestion. Her letters were published in 1811 (6 vols).