Anna Maria Bennett

Anna Maria Bennett (ca. 1750[1] – 12 February 1808) was a Welsh novelist who wrote in English. Some sources give her name as Agnes Maria Bennett. Her best-known work is the epistolary novel Agnes de-Courci (1789).[2]

Anna Maria Bennett
Bornc.1760
Merthyr Tydfil
Died12 February 1808
Brighton
NationalityKingdom of Great Britain
Occupationwriter
SpouseThomas Bennett
PartnerAdmiral Thomas Pye
Children2
RelativesHarriet Pye Esten (daughter)

She worked as the housekeeper of Thomas Pye, and was also her employer's mistress. They had two illegitimate children, one of whom was the actress Harriet Pye Esten.

Family

Anna was probably born in Merthyr Tydfil[3] Glamorgan, Wales, the daughter of a David Evans, who was described variously as a customs officer and a grocer.[4] She married a Thomas Bennett, who was either a customs officer or a tanner,[4] and moved to London with him. She soon left him and eventually found work in a chandler's shop. There she met Vice-Admiral Thomas Pye,[5] who took her to his property in Tooting, Surrey, where she became his housekeeper and mistress.[6]

She minc'd his meat, & made his bed
And warm'd it too, sometimes, 'tis said.'[5]

The couple had at least two illegitimate children together, Thomas Pye Bennett and Harriet Pye Bennett. The latter became a famous actress as Harriet Pye Esten, with her mother tutoring her and helping to launch her career.[6] The relationship ended with Pye's death in 1785, around the same time that Anna's first novel, Anna: Memoirs of a Welch Heiress, was published and became successful.[4] Pye died he left his Suffolk Street town house to Bennett.[7]

Her daughter, Harriet Pye Esten, initially appeared in Bath and Bristol before moving on to appear in Dublin. Whilst she was there in 1789 she and her mother negotiated a formal separation with James Esten. Bennett paid off her son-in-law's debts in exchange for his agreement.[8] Her final work, Vicissitudes Abroad, was highly controversial.[4] She died in Brighton.[4]

Works
  • Anna: or Memoirs of a Welch Heiress, 1785
  • Juvenile Indiscretions, 1786
  • Agnes de-Courci: a Domestic Tale, 1789[2]
  • Ellen, Countess of Castle Howel, 1794
  • The Beggar Girl and he Benefactors, 1797
  • De Valcourt, 1800
  • Vicissitudes Abroad, 1806

References
  1. Agnes Maria Bennett, in Laura Dabundo, ed., Encyclopedia of Romanticism (Routledge, 1992).
  2. Available from Chawton House as a PDF.
  3. "Bennett, Anna Maria (Agnes) Evans". Blackwell Reference Online. Archived from the original on 5 July 2018. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
  4. Darby Lewis (2012). "Anna Maria Bennett". In Diane Long Hoeveler; Frederick Burwick; Nancy Moore Goslee (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Romantic Literature. Wiley. p. 120.
  5. Charles Lee Lewes (1805). Memoirs: Containing Anecdotes, Historical and Biographical, of the English and Scottish Stages, During a Period of Forty Years. Vol. 4. R. Phillips. pp. 200–205.
  6. "'Bennett, Anna Maria (d. 1808)', rev. Rebecca Mills". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/2117. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  7. Laura Dabundo (15 October 2009). Encyclopedia of Romanticism (Routledge Revivals): Culture in Britain, 1780s-1830s. Routledge. pp. 86–88. ISBN 978-1-135-23234-4.
  8. "Esten [née Bennett; other married name Scott-Waring], Harriet Pye (1761?–1865), actress | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/39766. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

Sources
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