Author: Porter, Anna Maria
Biography:
PORTER, Anna Maria (1780-1832: Orlando)
She was born in Salisbury, the youngest of the five children of Jane (Blenkinsop) and William Porter. Her father, an army surgeon, died before she was born, and their widowed mother moved the family to Edinburgh. The two daughters, Jane and Anna Maria, attended George Fulton's school, where they excelled. Both wanted to write and both became very popular novelists, Jane (author of Thaddeus of Warsaw) the more famous but Anna Maria the more prolific, with almost thirty novels and romances to her name--the first written when she was thirteen. The family moved to London in 1794; from 1804 to 1831, Mrs. Porter and her daughters lived together in small towns in Surrey. After her death the sisters moved together to London, but on a visit to one of their brothers in Bristol, Anna Maria contracted typhus and died. She is buried in Bristol. Anna Maria Porter published only one collection of verse; her poems were, however, included in several fashionable anthologies. Her best-known novel was a work of historical fiction, The Hungarian Brothers (1807). (Orlando 2 Jul. 2020; ODNB 2 Jul. 2020)
Other Names:
- Miss Anna Maria Porter