Williams, Helen Maria

(1762-1827)

   Born in London of a Welsh army officer father (who died when Anna was a child) and a Scottish mother, she was brought up in Berwick-on-Tweed, Northumbria. In 1788 she went over to France and lived there for most of her life. During the Rein of Terror she and her family were confined in the Luxembourg prison, where she worked on translations of French language works into English. She died in Paris and was buried in Père-Lachaise. She wrote novels, volumes of letters, as well as translations and poetry. One of William Wordsworth's poems is "Sonnet on Seeing Miss Helen Maria Williams Weep at a Tale of Distress." Some of her publications: Edwin and Eltruda, A Legendary Tale, 1782. Ode on the Peace, 1783. Poems, 1786. Poem on the Bill Lately Passed for Regulating the Slave Trade, 1788. The Bastille, A Vision, 1790. Poems on Various Subjects, 1823. Some of her poems: "An Address to Poetry," "An American Tale," "An Epistle to Dr. Moore," "Euphelia; an Elegy," "My Steadfast Heart," "Paraphrases from Scripture," "Queen Mary's Complaint," "The Bastille, A Vision."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Helen Maria Williams: Poems, 1786. Woodstock Books, 1994. Romantic Women Poets: An Antholog y. Duncan Wu, ed. Blackwell Publishers, 1997. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The New Oxford Book of Romantic Period Verse. Jerome J. McGann. Oxford University Press, 1993. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Unity Hymns and Chorals. William Channing Gannett, ed. Unity Publishing Company, 1911.