Anne Manning

Artist Info

Anne ManningLondon, 1807 - 1879, Royal Tunbridge Wells, England

http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n88227223

found: MWA/NAIP files (hdg.: Manning, Anne, 1807-1879; usage: Anne Manning; Margareta More; Miss A. Manning; Author of Mary Powell; Author of The household of Sir Thos. More; Author of Cherry & Violet; Author of The faire gospeller; Author of The ladies of Bever Hollow; Author of The Old Chelsea Bun-Shop)

Manning, Anne (1807–1879), writer, was born in London on 17 February 1807, the daughter of William Oke Manning (1778–1859), an insurance broker of Lloyd's, London, and his wife, Joan Whatmore, daughter of Frederick Gibson, principal surveyor of the London docks. Manning's family included two notable legal writers: her first cousin Sir William Montague Manning (1811–1895), attorney-general and judge of the supreme court of New South Wales, was co-author of Reports in Court of Queen's Bench (1834), and her brother William Oke Manning (1809–1878) was the author of the 1839 treatise on international law Commentaries on the Law of Nations. James Manning (1781–1866), serjeant-at-law, was her uncle.

Manning spent her first eight years in Brunswick Square until the family moved to Old Chelsea, where they lived in the former home of Scottish author John Galt (1779–1839). Manning was educated by her mother, an accomplished scholar, and her schooling was thorough. She showed interest in the sciences and she was awarded a gold medal from the Royal Academy for a copy of Flower Girl originally by Spanish painter Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682). She received sound tuition in English literature and knew several languages, including Latin and Old French ([Manning], ‘Introduction’ to Thomas More, xxv).

At the age of nineteen Manning published A Sister's Gift: Conversations on Sacred Subjects (1826). That book of essays was succeeded by another, more historically based prose work, Stories from the History of Italy (1831). The latter was the only book ever published under her own name. During her lifetime she wrote numerous other essays and articles, a book on the elements of logic (The Hill Side, 1854), some verse, and autobiographical sketches. She is best remembered, however, as a prolific writer of historical fiction, mostly set in the sixteenth century.

Of particular note among Manning's many fictional works is The Maiden and Married Life of Mary Powell, Afterwards Mistress Milton (1849). The novel purports to be the diary of Mary Powell and, using its own contrived version of sixteenth-century words and spellings, shows a most careful attention to and knowledge of the works of Milton, as well as of the other major poets of that time. This work was extremely popular, went through eight printings in the nineteenth century, and enjoyed French and German translations. After its publication, Manning published as ‘the author of Mary Powell’. In what was largely an attempt to capitalize on the success of the original Mary Powell, the novel was amended in 1859 to include Deborah's Diary, the fictional diary of Milton's daughter. Manning's final novel on Milton was The Masque at Ludlow and other Romanesques (1866), which she described as an attempt to ‘outline [Milton] at an earlier age, full of promises that were to be richly fulfilled’ (Manning, viii).

Another significant success for Manning's fiction was The Household of Sir Thomas More (1851). Like Mary Powell, Thomas More combines pseudo-archaic language, considerable familiarity with historical facts, and female observation (this time in the epistolary mode) to create a reverential story that encompasses both public greatness and everyday private domesticity. The Household of Sir Thomas More also achieved great popularity, two language translations, and multiple reprintings. Other notable examples of Manning's historical fiction are Cherry and Violet: a Tale of the Great Plague (1853) and A Noble Purpose Nobly Won (1862), about Jeanne d'Arc.

Manning's bold inventiveness in portraying important historical moments and renowned figures did not go unnoticed or unchallenged. In 1855 a review of her works (including Mary Powell and Thomas More) lambasted the author for writing books ‘which are little else than a tissue of sentimental unrealities and falsehoods’ (‘Spurious antiques’, 106). While her works were never intended to be taken for literal truth, this hostile review highlights the issues that arise in the creation of historically based works of fiction. As a result of such difficulties, some of Manning's later works include disclaimers such as the one which precedes The Masque at Ludlow: ‘These letters have no pedigree, unless forged by the Cheat'em Society, of which, in an innocent way, I am a member’ (Manning, vii). The decidedly ‘old-fashioned’ tenor of Manning's works (Miller, 109) poses a greater problem for the modern reader, but a novel such as Mary Powell can be usefully read today both ‘because of and in spite of its sentimentality, its piety, and its didacticism’ (Swaim and Culley, 88).

According to her niece, Manning desired that no particulars about herself be published while she lived (Drake, 16). She kept in close retirement, avoided public notice through literary anonymity, and never married. She is remembered by her contemporaries as a ‘tall, thin lady with black hair, an aquiline nose, and a bright colour’ (Hutton, ‘Introduction’ to Mary Powell, xi). Although an extremely private person, Manning was greatly valued for her willingness to encourage other aspiring authors (Batty, 65). She is also depicted as a ‘stout English Churchwoman’, restrainedly but sincerely devout (Hutton, ‘Introduction’ to Mary Powell, xii). According to a written memorial, she was ‘a chronic invalid’ whose final years were racked by increasingly confining discomfort and whose gradual paralysis ended her career as an author in 1876 (Batty, 64, 66). A year before her death, illness forced her removal from Reigate Hill (which had been her home since 1850) to her sisters' home at Tunbridge Wells. She died there on 14 September 1879. She is buried near her parents in Mickleham churchyard, near Dorking.

Mary A. Armstrong

Sources

W. H. Hutton, ‘Introduction’, in A. Manning, The maiden and married life of Mary Powell, afterwards Mistress Milton (1898) · K. Swaim and M. Culley, ‘Anne Manning on John Milton’, Milton Quarterly, 10 (1976), 88–9 · [Mrs Batty], ‘In memoriam’, Englishwoman's Review, 11 (1880), 64–6 · DNB · L. Miller, ‘Anne Manning's “The masque at Ludlow”’, Milton Quarterly, 11 (1977), 107–9 · [A. Manning], introduction, in A. Manning, The household of Sir Thomas More (1906) · ‘Spurious antiques’, Fraser's Magazine, 52 (1855), 104–14 · W. H. Hutton, introduction, in A. Manning, The household of Sir Thomas More (1896) · E. C. Drake, N&Q, 8th ser., 8 (1895), 16 · A. Manning, ‘Introduction’, The masque at Ludlow and other romanesques (1868)