Anna Maria Porter

Anna Maria Porter. The Lake of Killarney:  a Novel

London:  T. N. Longman and O. Rees, 1804.

 

 

Biographical Sketch of Anna Maria Porter

Anna Maria Porter was a poet, a novelist and sister to Jane Porter. She was borin in the Bailey in Durham, the posthumous child of William Porter (1735-1779). William Porter served as an army surgeon for 23 years and is buried in St. Oswald's church. Anna was the younger sister of Sir Robert Ker Porter who was a painter. He created many battle paintings, one of which is over 120 feet long. Anna was fair-haired and very pretty; she was nicknamed L'Allegra. She was educated in Edinburgh along with her sister. By the 1790s she had reached London and was publishing verses in the Universal Magazine. She started her writing career at the young age of thirteen and continued until her death in 1832, producing some two or threescore volumes, many being translated into French. Though her sister, Jane was more popular, Anna was the more creative. The Hungarian Brothers (1807), is a stirring historical romance set against the French Revolutionary Wars; it was very successful and went into several editions. Other works included The Lake of Killarney, A Sailor's Friendship and a Soldier's Love, Don Sebastian, The Knight of St. John, Artless Tales, and Walsh Colville. Anna also produced the humanitarian Tales of Pity on Fishing, Shooting and Hunting in 1814 and collaborated with her sister on many collections of stories including Coming Out, The Field of the Forty Footsteps, and Tales Round a Winter Hearth.


SOURCES:

http://www.bartleby.com/221/1320.html
http://online.northumbria.ac.uk/faculties/art/humanities/cns/m-porter1.html
http://www.unl.edu/Corvey/html/Projects/Corvey%20Poets/PorterAnnaMaria/BalladBio.htm
http://www.npg.org.uk/live/OC_Data/images/weblg/9/7/mw05097.jpg

-- Prepared by Kate Lottinville, University of Nebraska, April 2006.
© Kate Lottinville, 2006.