Author: Wilson, Anne
Biography:
WILSON, Anne (fl 1778-83)
The bibliographical issue here is whether “Anne Wilson,” a widow who wrote the loco-descriptive poem Teisa to celebrate the River Teese and published that poem in Newcastle in 1778, is the same person as “Mrs. Ann Wilson,” who published a dramatic poem on the rather daring subject of Jephtha’s daughter in London in 1783. Internal evidence suggests that she was, and BL treats them as one although RPW separated them. Both poems are long and complicated, the work of a sophisticated writer. (There was at least one brief, mocking review of Jephthah’s Daughter [MR].). Teisareveals that the author, who would wish to live out her days in rural retirement, is obliged to live in a “hir’d house” with only her Muse as a companion now that her “dear friend” Lycidas has been taken from her. But it is possible that she is not one person but two. The Newcastle Chronicle carried an advertisement for Teisa but not for Jephthah’s Daughter. The two widows of this name who appear in its pages were an inn-keeper and the widow of a slater, neither of whom seems a likely match. Parish records include the burials of an “Ann Wilson” at All Saints, Newcastle, in 1787 and 1792 but no age at death is provided and the name is too common to pursue. (ancestry.com 28 June 2024; findmypast.com 28 June 2024; Newcastle Chronicle 15 Aug. 1778; MR 69 [Nov. 1783], 439)
Other Names:
- Ann Wilson