ABSTRACT
The progress of Anna Seward’s life during the 1770s, together with speculation about her sexuality, has been the subject of vague conjecture by writers and scholars. In the way she was able to unburden the anxieties and fears of what she considered to be the worst years of her life onto her two close friends, Mary Powys and Dorothy Sykes. Before the murmurs of scandal took hold, Seward’s letters to Mary Powys were filled with enthusiastic, mostly cheerful chatter and gossip. A regular feature of the letters to Sykes and Powys is Seward’s pleasure in Honora Sneyd’s happiness. Accounts of her life written in the Powys and Sykes letters confirm that by the 1770s, there was no attempt whatsoever to find a compromise to please her parents or anyone else; there was no ready ‘sacrifice’ whatsoever. The crisis of faith and exploration of theology was part of Seward’s rebellion against the enforced structure of her life.
