Anna Laetitia
Barbauld
Her
Biography
Anna Laetitia Aikin was born
in 1743 to John and Jane Aikin. During her childhood, she earned a domestic
education and learned Latin and Greek from her parents, who were of
Presbyterian background. From her brother’s encouragement, Anna published some
of her poems and hymns in 1771-2 in her friends’ collections of
She married
a minister, Rochemont Barbauld, the following year, and they opened up a
boarding school. Since they had no children, they adopted her brother’s third
child. During this time, many of Anna’s hymns and poetry were written towards
children. In the 1790’s, however, many of her pieces focused on the slave
trade, abolition, and revolutionary politics. In response to political pressure
and criticism regarding her family’s views, Anna wrote “Sins of the Government,
Sins of the Nation.” She also contributed to her brother’s magazine, edited
some of Samuel Richardson’s work, and published a series of essays and critical
reviews on English authors. She wrote a variety of moods and on a variety of
topics, but primarily focused on religion and the domestic setting. She was admired by her contemporaries,
Coleridge and Wordsworth.
Her husband fell mentally ill,
and he became violent and attacked Anna one night. As a result, they separated
for her safety. He later drowned himself in the New River, and she wrote of her
sorrow in “Dirge.” Her last work was “Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, A Poem”,
criticizing the warring politics between England and France.
Anna died in 1825. Her
descendants gathered her works and wrote memoirs in her memory, but many of the
manuscripts were destroyed in the bombing of London in 1940.
Web
Resources
Ø A
Celebration of Women Writers: Anna Laetitia Barbauld http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/barbauld/biography.html
A Webpage featuring a biography, links to
her selections of poems, and a bibliography of her works. (The search page
where her name is listed provides scans of various editions of her published
works, as well as links to other sources of information: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/_generate/authors-B.html)
Ø English
Poetry 1579-1830, Spenser and the Tradition: Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825)
http://spenserians.cath.vt.edu/AuthorRecord.php?&action=GET&recordid=33202&page=AuthorRecord
Virginia Tech’s page for Barbauld,
displaying the same information for Mary Robinson and Charlotte Smith on their
respective pages.
Ø Hymnary.org:
Anna Letitia Barbauld
A unique site that focuses on the hymns
Barbauld wrote. There is a brief biography (specializing in her hymn writing),
a list of the hymns she wrote and when they were written, and how many hymnals
they were written in. Some hymns’ links contain the scores used, midi files,
and scans of the hymns themselves.
Ø The
Anna Laetitia Barbauld Website
A small site containing digital editions
of her works, contemporary and modern criticism, and a list of links of outside
resources for further reference (many of which can also be found on sites like
Voice of the Shuttle).
Scholarship
Anderson,
John M. “‘The First Fire’: Barbauld
Rewrites the Greater Romantic Lyric.” Studies in
English Literature 34.4 (1994): 719-38. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.
Bailey,
Peggy Dunn. “Barbauld's ‘Hymns in Prose
for Children’: Christian Romanticism and Instruction as Worship.” Christianity &
Literature 59.4 (Summer 2010): 603-17. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.
Bellanca,
Ellen. “Science, Animal Sympathy,
and Anna Barbauld's ‘The Mouse's Petition’.” Eighteenth Century Studies 37.1
(Fall 2003): 47-67. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.
Choi,
Julie. “Feminine Authority? Common
Sense and the Question of Voice in the Novel.” New
Literary History 27.4 (Autumn 1996): 641-62. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.
Fyfe,
Aileen. “Reading Children's Books
in Late Eighteenth-Century Dissenting Families.” The
Historical Journal 43.2 (June 2000): 453-73. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.
Hammerschmidt,
Sören. “Barbauld's Richardson
and the Canonization of Personal Character.” Eighteenth-Century
Fiction 25.2 (Winter 2012-13): 431-454. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.
Lapp,
Robert K. “Authorship in Eighteen Hundred and
Eleven: An Integral Approach.” ESC: English
Studies in Canada 38.2 (June 2012): 49-70. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.
Major, Emma.
“Nature, Nation, and Denomination:
Barbauld's Taste for the Public.” Studies in
Romanticism 72.4 (Winter 2007): 909-30. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.
Otter,
Alice G Den. “Pests, Parasites, and
Positionality: Anna Letitia Barbauld and 'The Caterpillar'.” Studies in
Romanticism 43.2 (2004): 209-30. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.
Ready,
Kathryn J. “‘What then, poor
Beastie!’: Gender, Politics, and Animal Experimentation
in Anna Barbauld's ‘The Mouse's Petition’.” Eighteenth-Century Life 28.1 (Winter 2004): 92-114. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.
Rogers,
Katharine M. “Anna Barbauld's Criticism of Fiction
—Johnsonian Mode, Female Vision.” Studies in
Eighteenth-Century Culture 21 (1992): 27-41. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.
Rohrbach,
Emily. “Anna
Barbauld’s History of the Future: A Deviant Way to Poetic Agency.” European Romantic Review 17.2 (Apr. 2006): 179-87.
Web. 22 Sept. 2014.
Sanders,
Julia. “'The Mouse's Petition':
Anna Laetitia Barbauld and the Scientific Revolution.” The Review of
English Studies 53.212 (Nov. 2002): 500-16. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.
Toner,
Anne. “Anna Barbauld on Fictional
Form in The British Novelists (1810).” Eighteenth Century Fiction 24.2 (Fall
2012): 171-93. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.
Books
·
Found in TWU’s Library (not including her
works):
o
McCarthy,
William. Anna Letitia Barbauld:
Voice of the Enlightenment. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Print.
General
Collection (PR4057.B7
Z75 2008)
o
Oliver,
Grace A. and Mrs. Barbauld. Memoir, Letters, and a Selection from the Poems and Prose
Writings of Anna Laetitia Barbauld. New Haven: Research Publications, 1977. Print.
Woman's Collection - Reference (No Checkout) (MFILM
10 reel 363, no. 2516)
·
Found via Amazon and Barnes & Noble:
o
Murphy,
Olivia. Anna Letitia Barbauld: New Perspectives (Transits:
Literature, Thought & Culture, 1650-1850). New York: Bucknell
University Press, 2013. Print.
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