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Corvey 'Adopt an Author' Anne Bannerman |
The Corvey Project at Sheffield Hallam University |
BIOGRAPHY: Anne Bannerman (1765-1829) by Emma Bailey
Anne Bannerman published Poems (Edinburgh 1800) and Tales of Superstition and Chivalry (London 1802). Poems includes odes, translations and ten 'Sonnets from Werter' dating back to 1790 while Tales of Superstition and Chivalry is a collection of Gothic ballads dealing with ghosts, female prophets and images of violent destructive landscapes and shipwrecks, evidence of Bannerman's interest in the Sturm und Drang movement. The deaths of Bannerman's mother in December 1803 and her brother shortly afterwards in Jamaica left her destitute and without living relatives. Her friend Dr. Robert Anderson, in a letter to Bishop Percy of 15 September 1804, suggested an application to the government for an annuity or perhaps an edition of her poems by subscription. The latter suggestion was acted upon and a new edition of Poems which incorporated Tales of Superstition and Chivalry was published in Edinburgh 1807. Shortly afterwards Bannerman went to Exeter as governess to Lady Frances Beresford's daughter but it is not known how long she stayed there. She apparently wrote nothing for publication in the last twenty-two years of her life and she died at Portobello, near Edinburgh, on 29 September 1829.
