ABSTRACT
Anna Seward (‘the Swan of Lichfield’), was well into her thirties before she established herself as a poet, but her reputation had developed rapidly, and she had become a prominent figure in literary and intellectual circles both in London and in the Midlands. Seward’s defence of Wollstonecraft, written shortly after the publication of Godwin’s Memoirs, is interesting and a little surprising for several reasons. Politically, Seward and Wollstonecraft were, if not on opposite ends of the spectrum, at least widely divided. A letter of 26 February 1792 shows that Seward read Rights of Woman shortly after its publication, and, with minor reservations, admired ‘that wonderful book’ tremendously. Pleasing though it is to find Seward writing with sympathy of Wollstonecraft’s ‘virtues’, which she sees as outweighing her ‘errors’ and ‘frailties’, it is well to remember that she was not writing for publication.
