Portrait of Anna Seward, poet & literary critic

Stipple engraving portrait of Anna Seward (1747- 1809), writer, literary critic and correspondent. (Seward took the maintenance of her very large correspondence as a serious literary pursuit; she once quipped that an unanswered letter resembled ‘an unexpiated sin’ (Letters, 4.30). Among their various themes, Seward's Letters are a rare treasury of grim observations on health. Her circle of friends…