Yearsley, Ann

(1752-1806)

   Ann Cromartie was born of humble parents in Bristol and was taught to read and write by her brother. She married in 1774 and had several children. She was patronized by Hannah More (see entry), who revised Ann's poems. The money raised from Poems on Several Occasions (1785) was invested in a trust by More that excluded Ann from any control; the situation caused a breach between the two women and More withdrew her patronage. Nothing deterred, Anne started a circulating library in Bristol, and in 1789 her verse tragedy Earl Goodwin was performed at Bath and at Bristol. In 1795 she published The Royal Captives, a historical novel. She retired to Melksham, Wiltshire, where she died. Some of her other publications: A Poem on the Slave Trade, 1788. Reflections on the Death of Louis XVI, 1793. An Eleg y on Marie Antoinette, 1795. The Rural Lyre, 1796. Some of her poems: "Absence, a Juvenile Piece," "Addressed to Sensibility," "Lucy, a Tale for the Ladies," "To Frederick Yearsley," "To Mira, on the Care of Her Infant," "To the Bristol Marine Society."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Eighteenth Century Women Poets: An Oxford Anthology. Roger Lonsdale, ed. Oxford University Press, 1989. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). Poems on Various Subjects of Ann Yearsley. Woodstock Books, 1994. Romantic Women Poets: An Antholog y. Duncan Wu, ed. Blackwell Publishers, 1997. Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (http://library.stanford.edu). 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 Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.