SEWARD, ANNA

born Dec. 12, 1747, Eyam, Derbyshire, Eng. died March 25, 1809, Lichfield, Staffordshire English poet and author of a sentimental and poetical novel, Louisa (1784); she was popular in her day because of her rarity value as a woman poet and for her cult of sentiment. Often called the Swan of Lichfield, she became a member there of a literary circle that included William Hayley, Erasmus Darwin, Thomas Day, and Richard Lovell Edgeworth. Her verse was inferior, however, and she embarrassed Sir Walter Scott (with whom she had corresponded) by making him her literary executor.