Killigrew, Anne

(1660-1685)

   Born in St. Martin's Lane, London, she was the daughter of Henry Killigrew, doctor of divinity, master of the Savoy Hospital in the Strand, and chaplain to the Duke of York. Anne became maid of honor to Mary of Modena, Duchess of York but died of smallpox in her father's rooms in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. She was buried in the chancel of St. John the Baptist's Chapel in the Savoy. In 1686 John Dryden wrote an ode: "To the Pious Memory of the Accomplished Young Lady Mrs. Anne Killigrew." Samuel Johnson considered this ode to be the noblest in the English language. Poems by Mrs. Anne Killigrew was published in 1685. Some of her poems: "A Farewell to Worldly Joys," "An Invective against Gold," "Alexandreis," "Cloris' Charms Dissolved by Eudora," "On Death," "On the Birth-Day of Queen Katherine," "On the Soft and Gentle Motions of Eudora," "Pastoral Dialogue," "The Complaint of a Lover," "The Discontent," "To the Queen," "Upon the Saying That My Verses Were Made by Another."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Early Modern Women Poets (1520-1700). Jane Stevenson and Peter Davidson, ed. Oxford University Press, 2001. English Poetry, Second Edition Bibliography (http://collections.chadwyck.co.uk/html/ep2/bibliography/g.htm). 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). Poemhunter (www.poemhunter.com). The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry and Poetic Theory. Thomas J. Collins and Vivienne Rundle, ed. Broadview, 1999. 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 Norton Anthology of Poetry. 4th ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter and Jon Stal, eds. W.W. Norton, 1996.