Anne Hatton ["Anne of Swansea"]

Anne of Swansea. Lovers and Friends; or, Modern Attachments; a Novel in Five Volumes. By Anne of Swansea.

London:  Minerva Press for A. K. Newman and Co., 1821.

Biographical Sketch of Anne Hatton ("Anne of Swansea")

Ann[e] Kemble Curtis Hatton "Anne of Swansea" (29 April 1764 - 26 December 1838) was born the seventh child of Roger Kemble and Sarah Ward Kemble, a theatre couple whose children included the famous actress Sarah Siddons. She was such a precocious child that her family referred, perhaps ironically, to her as "The Genius," and when she was eleven, she wrote a play which her father produced at his theatre in Brecon Wales (Highfill, Burnim and Langhans 171-72). Later she serviced an apprenticeship with a mantua-maker, and in 1783 she married C. Curtis, a provincial actor who turned out to be a bigamist (Blaine, Clements, and Grundy 498-99).

The London papers provide a record of her activities over the next years. In October 1783 an advertisement appeared soliciting donations for her and stating that her famous family had refused to help. It said that she could not earn a living by doing needlework or making artificial flowers and because of her lameness, she was unable to earn a living on the stage like the rest of her family.

Next she gave lectures for a quack doctor named James Graham "on the present State and Influence of Women, on Society, in England, in France, in Spain and in the Eastern countries . . .[and on] the present indecent and unnatural phrenzy of the British Stage of turning Men into Women into Men." Later the London papers made note of her suicide attempt in Westminster Abbey and in 1789 of her accidental shooting in the eye by her male companion when she was working in a Bagnio in the Covent Garden Piazza (qtd. in Highfill, Burnim and Langhans 172).

In some reports she lost an eye, but in 1834, when she was seventy, a letter, not in Ann Hatton's handwriting but signed by "A Resident of Swansea," appeared stating "that she has not lost any eye. She still has the perfect use of a pair of dark, brilliant, and impressive ones . . ." (qtd. in Highfill, Burnim and Langhans 175). A portrait painted during these years can be found on "Swansea Heritage Net"; it seems to confirm that both of her eyes were intact.

During her lifetime she tried various literary genres. When she was fourteen she began writing poetry and her volume of "Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects," which was published in 1783, and one critic, with faint praise, wrote, "The public is frequently addressed in worse poetry" (Seilhamer 84-5). In her later life, as "Anne of Swansea," she published Poetic Trifles (1811), which includes "Swansea Bay," and autobiographical verses which poignantly express her "sense of desolation in old age . . . [and] her bitterness towards her family" (Dearnley).

Even though she was lame and had a squint (Highfill, Burnim and Langhans 171) and/or was scarred by smallpox (Dearnley), she did appear on stage at several times during her life. According to Seilhamer, in June 1793 she appeared at the Haymarket as Kitty in Seeing Is Believing and asNancy in Pad (85), and William Smith Clark suggests that ten years earlier she appeared at the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin (qtd. in Highfill, Burnim and Langhans 172). During her years in Swansea, she was connected with the Swansea Theatre, and despite being "lame and grossly overweight," she appeared in some productions including Alexander's Feast, and in Douglas as Lady Randolph. The record indicates that after her success as Lady Randolph, she planned to play Calista in The Fair Penitent in the manner of her sister, Mrs. Siddons (qtd. in Dearnley).

She also wrote for the stage. In January 1792, she married William Hatton, who was reported by James Winston to be a musical-instrument maker (qtd. in Highfill, Burnim and Langhans 173), and in 1792 she accompanied him to the United States (Dearnley). She is reported to have supplied the plot and to have written one of the songs, but not the dialogue, for "a musical trifle, called Needs Must, or the Ballad Singers" (Seilhamer 84). Dunlap, after pointing out her relationship to the "highly talented family" of Kemble and labeling Hatton a "vulgar man," provides information about her second endeavor in the American theatre, her authorship of a play called Tammany, which he points out she assured some success for by presenting it to the Tammany Society. The theatre managers, according to Dunlap, "would not have dared to reject any thing from one of St. Tammany, and gladly received this production of the sister of Mrs. Siddons, seasoned high with spices hot from Paris . . . " (103-04). Dunlap's own view of the production was not favorable. He says that although The Daily Advertiser published a comment placing Tammany "among the highest efforts of genius, he thought it "literary a mélange of bombast (108). Tammany has been called the first American opera on an Indian subject and was modestly successful, playing in Philadelphia and Boston after its opening in New York (Highfill, Burnim and Langhans 173).

In America, she also gave a lecture on hearts, which she had written, and also gave readings from Dryden, Milton, Sterne, Smollet, Cooper, and Garrick.

By 1799 the Hattons had returned from the United States and settled in Swansea, where they operated a bathing house until his death in 1806. After operating a dancing school in Kidwelly, she returned to Swansea, where she lived out her life (Dearnley). It was there from 1810 until 1831 that she supported herself by writing the fourteen novels using the pen name of "Anne of Swansea," that comprise the whole of her work in that genre (Highfill, Burnim and Langhans 173).

These novels represent all popular types, including Gothic, social satire, and moral progress, and every female stereotype, including bossy wife, doting mother, and crabby old maids, plus some devastating portraits of Swansea and of herself. They were published by the Minerva Press in London (which became A. K. Newman and Company in 1820), and were among hundreds of works, mainly by women, which were placed on the shelves of the very popular circulating libraries of the time (Blaine, Clements, and Grundy 499; Dearnley; Freimarck).

Of her novels, which she also called romances or tales, Dearnley says she was, at her best, "capable of writing fluent narrative and lively dialogue, but her novels are immensely long and for the most part undeniably tedious." This tedious length, broken into a number of volumes, however, was important to the success of Hatton's novels in the circulating libraries because each volume counted as a separate book and generated revenue for five books, not just one.

During this period, until the end of her life, she received allowances from her father, brother, and sister, reportedly given on the condition that she stayed at least one hundred miles from London, where they lived (Dearnley). However, she was never comfortable financially, and she after her novel career was over, she continued to try to raise subscriptions for various writing projects, including a biography of her sister, Mrs. Siddons (Highfill, Burnim and Langhans 175).

She died a Catholic, even though she probably had been raised a Protestant, the faith of her mother, in the practice of the time, in Swansea in 1838 and was buried behind the St. John's Church there.

She left several personal effects to her step-daughter, Mary Hatton Lawrence, and the Rev. William Bond, Catholic priest of Swansea. Her remaining estate was left to her devoted servant, Mary Johns. Her papers are archived at the Folger Shakespeare Library (Blaine, Clements, and Grundy 175).

Novels

Cambrian Pictures; or, Every One Has Errors, 3 vols. (1810?).
Sicilian Mysteries; or, the Fortress Del Vecchi, a romance (1812).
Conviction; or She Is Innocent!, A novel in 5 vols. (1814).
Secret Avengers; or, the Rock of Glotzden, a romance in 4 vols. (1815).
Chronicles of an Illustrious House; or the Peer, the Lawyer, and the Hunchback, a novel in 5 vols. (1816).
Gonzalo de Baldiva; or, a Widow's Vow, a romantic legend in 4 vols. (1817).
Secrets in Every Mansion; or, the Surgeon's Memorandum Book, 5 vol. (1818).
Cesario Rosalba; or, the Oath of Vengeance, a romance in 5 vols. (1819).
Lovers and Friends; or Modern Attachments, a novel in 5 vols. (1821).
Guilty or Not Guilty; or, a Lesson for Husbands, a tale in 5 vols. (1822).
Woman's a Riddle, a romantic tale in 4 vols. (1824).
Deeds of the Olden Times, a romance in 5 vols. (1826).
Uncle Peregrine's Heiress, a novel in 5 vols. (1828).
Gerald Fitzgerald; an Irish Tale, 5 vols. (1831).

        --- (Highfill, Burnim and Langhans 173-74).

Works Cited

"Ann of Swansea--William Watkeys." Swansea Heritage Net. 13 Jan. 2006 <http://www.swanseaheritage.net/article/gat.asp?ARTICLE_ID=203>.

Blain, Virginia, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy, ed. "Hatton, Ann." The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. New Haven: Yale UP, 1990. 498-99.

Dearnley, Moira. "Hatton, Ann Julia (1764-1838)." 2004. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford UP. 13 Jan. 2006<http://0-www.oxforddnb.com.library.unl.edu:80/view/article/45853>.

Dunlap, William. History of the American Theatre. New York: J & J Harper, 1832.

Freimarck, Vincent. "Hatton, Ann Julia Kemble." Feb. 2000 American National Biography Online. 13 Jan. 2006 <http://0-www.anb.org.library.unl.edu:80/articles/16/16-02337.html>.

Highfill, Philip H., Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans. "Hatton, Mrs. William, Ann Julia, née Kemble, formerly Mrs. C. Curtis." A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. Vol. 7. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 1982. 171-75.

Seilhamer, George O. History of the American Theatre: New Foundations. Philadelphia: Globe Printing House, 1891.

-- Prepared by Vicki L. Martin, University of Nebraska, April 2006.
© Vicki L. Martin, 2006.