ABSTRACT
Throughout the last three decades of her life, Joanna Baillie maintained close relations with a group of New England Unitarians, most of them associated with the Federal Street meeting-house in Boston. She was especially close to William Ellery Channing, senior pastor of the meetinghouse, whom she regarded as the finest living writer of English prose, and Andrews Norton, the Unitarian theologian and biblical scholar. 2 Through them, she became acquainted with several other members of the Federal Street congregation: Channing's assistants, Orville Dewey and Ezra Stiles Gannett, 3 and Norton's friend and brother-in-law, George Ticknor, the accomplished diarist and Harvard professor of modern languages. The Ticknor Collection at Dartmouth College contains several books and manuscripts that document Baillie and Ticknor's friendship: three letters from Baillie to Ticknor, journal accounts by both George and Anna Ticknor of visits to Baillie in 1835 and 1838, Ticknor's collection of Baillie's published works, including one presentation copy, and letters by Ticknor's friends or acquaintances that contain references to the playwright. From them emerges a clear narrative of the friendship of Baillie and Ticknor, a friendship that provides an interesting glimpse of Baillie herself and calls attention to the significance of her literary reputation in America.
