Anna Maria Bennett

Anna Maria Bennett , or Agnes Maria Bennett (* around 1750, presumably in Merthyr Tydfil  , † February 12, 1808 in Brighton ) was a Welsh writer and the mother of an English actress. Her best-known work is the epistolary novel Agnes de-Courci from 1789.

family

Anna was believed to be born in Merthyr Tydfil, a town in the southern Welsh county of Glamorgan . She was the daughter of David Evans. She was briefly married to a customs officer named Thomas Bennett, but when she moved to London to help out in a naval clothing store, she met Vice Admiral Sir Thomas Pye . She became his housekeeper and lover at his home in Tooting, London.

She minc'd his meat, & made his bed

And warm'd it too, sometimes, 'tis said.'

The couple had two illegitimate children, Thomas Pye Bennett and Harriet Pye Bennett. The latter later appeared as the well-known actress Harriet Pye Esten , whose career was strongly promoted by her mother.

Her son Thomas married the admiral's (not blood relatives) daughter Mary.

Agnes' daughter Harriet married Navy member James Esten in 1784, presumably at the age of 19 . Supported by her mother, she began her acting career in Bath and Bristol and continued it in Dublin . During her time in the Irish capital, her mother negotiated a formal divorce from James Esten. It helped that James Esten was heavily in debt and that Agnes Maria paid his debts. In 1785, Bennett and Pye separated. The occasion was a letter Pye inadvertently addressed to her, which was supposed to be sent to another woman. Three weeks later, the admiral died at the age of 76, leaving Agnes his town house on Suffulk Street.

From July 1792 to 1794 she and her daughter Harriet took over the Theater Royal in Edinburgh, Scotland . While Harriet went about her acting duties in London (which met criticism from the local press), Bennett actually ran the theater on her own, which demanded a lot from her.

writing

Although critics criticized the verbosity in their works, the quality of their novel poetry was so outstanding that Bennett was seen in an obituary as the equivalent of Henry Fielding or Samuel Richardson ("the equal of Fielding or Richardson"). The achievement of such high standards, however, was achieved under sometimes adverse conditions of their professional activities. Due to the high stress that the strenuous management of the Edinburgh theater brought with it, she found writing a welcome compensation.

Critics valued the “verbal irony” and “down-to-earth satire” of The Beggar Girl . Later observers were reminded of Charles Dickens , with a focus on "living in riches, living in poverty and the economic interactions between" ( 'high life, low life and the economic interactions between' ). Like Dickens, she was not afraid to add a strong satirical edge to her stories. For example, she scoffed at the narrow conventions of the romance novel by giving the chapters of her novel The Beggar Girl headings such as "The Long Story", "The Long Story Continues" and "No End to the Long Story".

In fact, Bennett, as she was later classified as a "scandalous memoir" writer, occasionally crossed the line and "her lively sexual comedy and heavy use of sexual innuendo [...] quickly became just as unacceptable."

Her penchant for controversy - not even her publisher Lane and his publishing empire were safe from their satirical bite (in The Beggar Girl ) (which he endured with long-suffering) - had to be toned down in the interest and respect of the royal family . She did this by adding three dedications to her novels.

Most of the books were published by William Lane's publisher Minerva Press . Agnes de-Courci was edited by S. Hazard (Bath) and De Valcourt was published by R. Dutton (London).

Works

• Anna: or Memoirs of a Welch Heiress , 1785
• Juvenile Indiscretions , 1786
• Agnes de-Courci: a Domestic Tale , 1789
• Ellen, Countess of Castle Howel , 1794
• The Beggar Girl and he Benefactors , 1797
• De Valcourt , 1800
• Vicissitudes Abroad , 1806

Web links

Commons : Anna Maria Bennett  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Jennett Humphreys: 'Bennett, Anna Maria ( d.1808 )', rev. Rebecca Mills . In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , doi : 10.1093 / ref: odnb / 2117 .
• Literature by and about Anna Maria Bennett in the bibliographic database WorldCat
• Biography Bennet, PDF 80 kB ( Memento from February 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
• Online versions by Agnes De-Courci

Individual evidence

1. ^ Agnes Maria Bennett, in Laura Dabundo, ed., Encyclopedia of Romanticism (Routledge, 1992).
2. ^ Bennett, Anna Maria (Agnes) Evans . Archived from the original on July 5, 2018. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved July 5, 2018. 
3. ↑ Some sources speak of a customs officer, others of a grocer
4. ^ ^{A b} Dictionary of British Women Writers, ed. By Janet Todd (London: Routledge, 1989), p. 57.
5. ^ ^{A b} Charles Lee Lewes: Memoirs: Containing Anecdotes, Historical and Biographical, of the English and Scottish Stages, During a Period of Forty Years , Volume 4. R. Phillips, 1805, pp. 200-205 (Accessed July 25 2019).
6. ↑ ^{a b} 'Bennett, Anna Maria (d.1808)', rev. Rebecca Mills . In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , doi : 10.1093 / ref: odnb / 2117 .
7. ↑ Laura Dabundo: Encyclopedia of Romanticism (Routledge Revivals): Culture in Britain, 1780s-1830s . Routledge, October 15, 2009, ISBN 978-1-135-23234-4 , pp. 86-88.
8. ↑ http://orlando.cambridge.org/protected/svPeople?people_tab=3&formname=r&heading=h&person_id=bennan#HerDaughter , Anna Maria Bennett © Orlando Project
9. ↑ Harriet Pye (1761? –1865), actress, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography doi: 10.1093 / ref: odnb / 39766 .
10. ↑ A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800 by Philip H. Highfill, Kalman A. Burnim, Edward A. Langhans (SIU Press) in the Google book search
11. ^ Bennet biography, PDF 80 kB ( Memento from February 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
12. ↑ ^{a b} " ... a welcome escape from 'Mental Derangement' ", The Feminist Companion to Literature in English, ed. Virginia Blain u. a. (London: BT Batsford Ltd., 1990), p. 82.
13. ↑ Bloomsbury Guide To Women's Literature, ed. By Claire Buck (London: Bloomsbury, 1992), p. 335.
14. ^ The English Novel 1770-1829: A Bibliographical Survey of Prose Fiction Published in the British Isles, Edition I: 1770-1799, Ed. Peter Garside et al (Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 101.