Anna Eliza Bray (born Kempe, afterwards Stothard; 25 December 1790 – 21 January 1883) was an English historical novelist. She also wrote several works of non-fiction.
Biography
Anna Eliza Kempe was born in the parish of
Newington, Surrey on 25 December 1790, to John Kempe, a bullion porter in the Royal Mint, and Ann, daughter of James Arrow of Westminster. Kempe planned to be an actress, and her public appearance at the Bath Theatre was duly announced for 27 May 1815. However, she caught a severe cold on her journey, which prevented her appearance, and the opportunity was lost. In February 1818, she married
Charles Alfred Stothard
Charles Alfred Stothard (5 July 1786 – 28 May 1821) was an English antiquarian draughtsman, with a special interest in monumental effigies.
Life
Stothard was born in London, the son of the painter, Thomas Stothard. He was educated at a sch ...
, son of the noted painter
Thomas Stothard
Thomas Stothard (17 August 1755 – 27 April 1834) was an English painter, illustrator and engraver.
His son, Robert T. Stothard was a painter ( fl. 1810): he painted the proclamation outside York Minster of Queen Victoria's accession to the t ...
R. A. They travelled to France, and her first work consisted of ''Letters written during a Tour in Normandy, Brittany, &c., in 1818''.
[
As an artist, her husband was devoted to illustrating the sculptured monuments of Great Britain, but on 28 May 1821 he fell off a ladder and died in St Andrew's Church, Bere Ferrers, Devon, while collecting materials for his work ''The Monumental Effigies of Great Britain''. She had one child by him, a daughter (born 29 June 1821, died 2 February 1822). In 1823 she produced a memoir of her late husband and undertook to complete the book he had left unfinished, with the aid of her brother ]Alfred John Kempe
Alfred John Kempe (1784 – 21 August 1846) was an English antiquary.
Life
Kempe was born in London, and baptised at the church of St Mary, Newington on 16 July 1784. He was the only son of John Kempe, bullion-porter in the Royal Mint, and his ...
. She eventually did so and the work appeared in 1832.[Lindley 2012.] She left the original drawings of his great work to the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
on her death.[
Many years later she provided the '']Gentleman's Magazine
''The Gentleman's Magazine'' was a monthly magazine founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term '' magazine'' (from the French ''magazine' ...
'' and ''Blackwood's Magazine
''Blackwood's Magazine'' was a British magazine and miscellany printed between 1817 and 1980. It was founded by the publisher William Blackwood and was originally called the ''Edinburgh Monthly Magazine''. The first number appeared in April 1817 ...
'' with reminiscences of her father-in-law, Thomas Stothard, R. A. These were afterwards (1851) expanded into a life of that artist.[
A year or two after Stothard died, Anna Eliza married Edward Atkyns Bray, Vicar of ]Tavistock
Tavistock ( ) is an ancient stannary and market town within West Devon, England. It is situated on the River Tavy from which its name derives. At the 2011 census the three electoral wards (North, South and South West) had a population of 13 ...
. She then began writing historical novels, and from 1826 to 1874 produced at least a dozen. Some, such as ''The Talba, or the Moor of Portugal'' (1830) deal with foreign life, but her most popular ones revived the principal families of the counties of Devon
Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...
and Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
, such as the Trelawneys of Trelawne, the Pomeroys, and the Courtenays of Walreddon. They proved so popular that a set of ten volumes by Longmans appeared in 1845–1846 and was reprinted by Chapman & Hall
Chapman & Hall is an Imprint (trade name), imprint owned by CRC Press, originally founded as a United Kingdom, British publishing house in London in the first half of the 19th century by Edward Chapman (publisher), Edward Chapman and William Hall ...
as late as 1884. While she was living in Tavistock, Bray discovered and took up a young lady's maid, Mary Colling, who had produced a book of poetry, which Bray saw was published.
Ann Bray's second husband died in 1857. She then moved to London, where she selected and edited some of his poetry and sermons, before returning to original work. Her last years were embittered by a report that on a visit to Bayeux in 1816, she had stolen a piece of the Bayeux Tapestry. However, her character was cleared by correspondence and leading articles that appeared in the ''Times''. She died in London on 21 January 1883. Her autobiography up to 1843 was published by her nephew, John A. Kempe, in 1884, although it is sketchy and inaccurate. It depicts an accomplished and kindly woman, proud of her own creations and enthusiastic in praise of the literary characters she knew.[
]
Other works
Bray wrote many other works in addition to those mentioned so far. They included ''The Borders of the Tamar and the Tavy'' (1836, 3 vols.), which describes in a series of letters to Southey the traditions, legends and superstitions that surround the town of Tavistock, on the borders of the River Tamar
The Tamar (; kw, Dowr Tamar) is a river in south west England, that forms most of the border between Devon (to the east) and Cornwall (to the west). A part of the Tamar Valley is a World Heritage Site due to its historic mining activities.
T ...
and the River Tavy
The Tavy () is a river on Dartmoor, Devon, England. The name derives from the Brythonic root "Tam", once thought to mean 'dark' but now generally understood to mean 'to flow'. It has given its name to the town of Tavistock and the villages of ...
. It was reviewed by Southey himself in the ''Quarterly Review''. The remainder copies were issued with a new title page by H. G. Bohn in 1838, and a new edition compressed by Mrs Bray herself into two volumes appeared in 1879. Also connected with South-West England are a series of tales for "young people" on the romantic legends connected with Dartmoor
Dartmoor is an upland area in southern Devon, England. The moorland and surrounding land has been protected by National Park status since 1951. Dartmoor National Park covers .
The granite which forms the uplands dates from the Carboniferous P ...
and North Cornwall
North Cornwall ( kw, An Tiredh Uhel) is an area of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is also the name of a former local government district, which was administered from Bodmin and Wadebridge . Other towns in the area are Launceston, Bude, P ...
, entitled, ''A Peep at the Pixies, or Legends of the West'' (1854).[
In 1841, her ''The Mountains and Lakes of Switzerland, with Notes on the Route there and back'' was published. After a silence of some years she issued three compilations in French history in 1870, ''The Good St. Louis and his Times'', ''The Revolt of the Protestants of the Cevennes'', and ''Joan of Arc''. These were reported by the author of her entry in the Dictionary of National Biography in 1886 to be "pleasantly written, but lacked historical research that could have made them of permanent value".]
Among her other works are ''Branded'', ''Trelawney
Trelawny or Trelawney may refer to:
Places
* Trelawny (electoral division), an electoral division of Cornwall
* Trelawny, Black Hill, Ballarat, a heritage house in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
* Trelawny, Jamaica, a parish of Cornwall County, Jam ...
'', and '' The White Hoods: an Historical Romance''.
References
Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bray, Anna Eliza
1790 births
1883 deaths
English women novelists
Writers from Tavistock
19th-century English novelists
19th-century English women writers
19th-century British writers