Evening Talk, Thursday 3rd April 2014
“Editing Ann Yearsley, ‘The Bristol Milkwoman’ (1753-1806)”
Dr. Kerri Andrews, University of Strathclyde
Ann Yearsley, ‘The Bristol Milkwoman’, shot to fame in 1785 when her first volume of poetry, Poems on Several Occasions, was published with the help of Hannah More, renowned playwright, educationalist, and friend to the great and good of the late eighteenth century.
Through More’s patronage, Yearsley’s poetry attracted more than 1,000 subscribers, including the prime minister, William Pitt, and Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. If this debut brought
Yearsley fame and fortune, the public falling-out with her patron which followed almost immediately after brought notoriety and infamy which would dog her not only for the rest of her career but for the next two hundred years, during which her works would be dismissed and her character traduced.
In this lecture, Dr. Andrews will discuss a range of newly-discovered materials, including the only letter known to exist between Yearsley and More. The talk will explore some of the consequences of editing Yearsley’s works – in terms both of More’s real and alleged interference with Yearsley’s work in the 1780s, and the presentation of Yearsley’s writing for a modern audience.
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