— The Corvey Poets Project at the University of Nebraska —

British Poetry of the later Eighteenth and Earlier Nineteenth Centuries

Bibliographical and Contextual Apparatus

Biographical Information

Anna Maria Porter was born in Durham in 1780. She was best known during her lifetime for her novel writing but also wrote a collection of ballads and sonnets that did not gain much popularity. Porter began writing when she was thirteen and became known as a prolific writer. Anna's older sister, Jane Porter, was considered a popular novelist and in most literary biographical sources, there is strong evidence that the reading public favored Jane's writing over Anna's novels. Anna was the younger sister of the famous traveler and painter Sir Robert Ker Porter, who was best known for his battle paintings (he created one such painting that was 120 feet long). Most of the information about Anna Maria Porter is actually more concerned with the lives and activities of members of her family than with her writing experience.

Porter was educated with her sister in Edinburgh and lived with her family in London in her early twenties. She then moved to Esher, Surrey, with her sister, where they lived with their mother. Anna and Jane returned to London in 1831 after the death of their mother. Porter's father was a surgeon in the Irish army but he died when the Anna was just a child. Anna died in 1832 when she was only fifty-two years old. Jane lived until 1850.

Anna Maria Porter was best known for her novel writing. In addition to her collection of poetry, Ballad Romances, and Other Poems, she is best known for The Hungarian Brothers, a novel about the French Revolution. She also wrote The Lakes of Killarney, A Sailor's Friendship and a Soldier's Love, Don Sebastian, The Knight of St. John, Artless Tales, Walsh Colville (published anonymously), Tales of Pity on Fishing, and Shooting and Hunting. In her lifetime, Porter wrote over fifty volumes and many of her works were translated into other languages, especially French. There are also a few literary pieces that Jane and Anna Maria completed together such as Coming Out, The Field of the Forty Footsteps, and Tales Round a Winter Hearth.

Sources:
www.historyswomen.com. Jane and Anna Maria Porter — English Romantic Novelists.
Kunitz. British Authors of the 19th Century. New York: The HW Wilson Company, 1936.
http://online.northumbria.ac.uk Anna Maria Porter (1780-1832).

Prepared by Jill Craig, University of Nebraska, December 2004.
     © Jill Craig, 2004.