Anna Seward
born Dec. 12, 1747, Eyam, Derbyshire,
Eng.
died March 25, 1809, Lichfield, Staffordshire
English poet and author of a sentimental and
poetical novel, Louisa (1784); she was popular
in her day because of her rarity value as a
woman poet and for her cult of sentiment.
Often called the “Swan of Lichfield,” she
became a member there of a literary circle that
included William Hayley, Erasmus Darwin, Thomas
Day, and Richard Lovell Edgeworth. Her verse was
inferior, however, and she embarrassed Sir
Walter Scott (with whom she had corresponded) by
making him her literary executor.
