ABSTRACT
The year 1780 marked a transitional moment in Anna Seward’s life as the previous wretched decade culminated in a tragic time of sickness and death. The catalyst for Seward’s first steps towards a self-constructed public persona had an intriguing source. Seward describes how the ‘wild and umbrageous’ valley was cultivated by the doctor in an experiment to unite the study of botanic science with the beauty of sublime landscape. Seward cites the courtesan’s biographers, who clearly demonstrated that their subject had a charm and beauty ‘considerable enough to procure her young lovers at the age of eighty’. The lack of a classical education did not prevent Seward from adopting some neoclassical values of Augustan rhetoric, which she combined with her strong expression of sensibility. By 1784, so many people were writing to Seward that she began to find it difficult to keep up with her daily correspondence.
