Anna Maria Porter
Anna Maria Porter was an English author born in 1780 in Durham, England. The daughter of an army surgeon, she and her family relocated to Edinburgh shortly after her birth. Demonstrating remarkable literary talent from a young age, Porter was reading Shakespeare by four and excelled in her studies, eventually publishing her first stories by the age of sixteen. Throughout her life, she was prolific, producing multiple works over thirty-seven years, despite battling significant health issues. Her writing often aimed to convey moral lessons through historical fiction and romantic novels, although she was met with mixed critical reception regarding the quality of her plots and characters.
Porter's sister, Jane, gained greater acclaim as a writer, but Anna remained dedicated to her craft, frequently engaging in family reading sessions to share and critique their works. Although she ventured into poetry, she ultimately returned to prose, finding fulfillment in storytelling. Tragically, after her mother’s death in 1831, Porter’s creative endeavors came to a halt. She passed away from typhus in 1832, leaving behind a legacy marked by a passionate commitment to writing and moral storytelling.
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Subject Terms
Anna Maria Porter
Writer
- Born: 1780
- Birthplace: Durham, England
- Died: June 21, 1832
- Place of death: Bristol, England
Biography
Anna Maria Porter was born in 1780 in Durham, England, to Jane Blenkinsop and William Porter, an army surgeon who died several months before her birth. Soon after her she was born, Porter’s mother and her five children moved to Edinburgh, Scotland. Porter was reported to have read William Shakespeare by the age of four. Her sister, Jane, was also deemed a prodigy, and the two girls were enrolled at the prestigious George Fulton School. By the age of five, Porter was so accomplished that leading educators, who came to the school to examine its quality, placed her at the head of all of the classes, even further along than a sixteen-year-old competitor.
By 1794, the Porter family was living in London and the two sisters had settled into a genteel life of letters. By age sixteen, Porter already had published two volumes of her stories, Artless Tales; the work of her sister, Jane, was not published until 1799, when she was twenty-three. Jane was a far more skilled and popular writer, but Porter was much more prolific, producing at least numerous multiple-volume works in thirty-seven years, all the while suffering lengthy illnesses. Despite her ill health, Porter was consumed with writing, leaving little room for anything else, except for family reading sessions, in which the sisters would critique each other’s daily output, with their mother as their audience.
The Porter family was deeply religious and the two sisters hoped their works would convey the virtue in choosing the moral, just, and right path in all journeys. They strove to infuse any proselytism with an engaging tale. Porter first chose to convey her message in historical fiction and later in romantic novels. Her characters sometimes failed to ring true and her plots suffered from improbable twists. Critics homed in on the imperfections, one saying that her second novel, Octavia, was “without any particular merit, or any particular fault.” Another noted: “Miss Porter may with care become respectable as a poetess, but we would advise her to relinquish the task of writing novels.”
Not to be dissuaded, Porter included a disclaimer in the preface to her third novel, The Lake of Kilarney, saying it was “merely an amusement for the languid hours, which followed long and repeated fits of sickness.” She added: “I honestly confess my mediocrity, and prepare my readers for the unimportance of my work.” One critic demurred, finding an evangelical value which “inculcates pure morality.”
In 1807, Porter published The Hungarian Brothers, in a novel patterned after sister Jane’s Thaddeus of Warsaw (1803). Again, a critic jabbed at her, calling the work “inferior to Thaddeus, but not unworthy of the author.” Another spoke of her “amiable incompetence.”
By this time, Porter was almost constantly ill, though her poor health did not diminish her intent to keep writing. She turned to poetry for a while, possibly taking the suggestion of the critic who thought she would be a better poet than a novelist, but she found the process of writing poetry boring. Her brain was teeming with story lines, so she returned to her romantic indulgences.
Porter enjoyed modest successes and intermittent troughs, always within the framework of a cozy family life. All of that ended in 1831, when her mother died and she and her sister stopped writing. In 1832, Porter contracted typhus while visiting her brother, William, in Bristol, and died on June 21, 1832.