Mary Anne Burges (6 December 1763 – 10 August 1813) was a Scottish writer who wrote a successful sequel to ''

The Pilgrim's Progress ''The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come'' is a 1678 Christian allegory written by John Bunyan. It is commonly regarded as one of the most significant works of Protestant devotional literature and of wider early moder ...

''.

Life

Burges was born in Edinburgh in 1763 to George and Anne Burges. Her father had distinguished himself at the

Battle of Culloden The Battle of Culloden took place on 16 April 1746, near Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. A Jacobite army under Charles Edward Stuart was decisively defeated by a British government force commanded by the Duke of Cumberland, thereby endi ...

by capturing the standard of Charles Edward Stewart and was later deputy paymaster in

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

; he was in charge of the customs when she was born. Burges was a gifted linguist familiar with five to seven European languages. Her particular interests were geology and botany. Her group of friends included Anne Elliot,

Jean-André Deluc Jean-André Deluc or de Luc (8 February 1727 – 7 November 1817) was a geologist, natural philosopher and meteorologist from the Republic of Geneva. He also devised measuring instruments. Biography Jean-André Deluc was born in Geneva. His ...

and the diarist

Elizabeth Simcoe Dame Elizabeth Posthuma Simcoe (22 September 1762 – 17 January 1850) was an English artist and Diary, diarist in Canada under British Imperial control (1764-1867), colonial Canada. Her husband, John Graves Simcoe, was the first Lieutenant Gove ...

. She is said to have been a major contributor to Deluc's last book and she sketched her friend Elizabeth Simcoe, as well as illustrating her own botanical descriptions.

Sequel

She is known for anonymously publishing a sequel to

John Bunyan John Bunyan (; 1628 – 31 August 1688) was an English writer and preacher. He is best remembered as the author of the Christian allegory ''The Pilgrim's Progress'', which also became an influential literary model. In addition to ''The Pilgrim' ...

's renowned allegorical work ''

''. Her book, ''The Progress of the Pilgrim Good-Intent, in Jacobinical Times'', has as its hero "Good-Intent", who according to the book's introduction he is the great, great-grandson of John Bunyan's hero, "Christian". The book went through seven editions in English, two in Ireland and three in America by 1802, and established Burges as a professional and independent woman. She died in 1813 at her house in Ashfield. An introduction by her elder brother, Sir James Lamb, 1st Baronet (born James Burges), to a later edition of her book revealed the identity of the book's author.Jennett Humphreys, 'Burges, Mary Anne (1763–1813)’, rev. Rebecca Mills, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 4 Aug 2014
/ref> In 1814 the book was reissued with John Bowdler for another edition.The Progress of Good Intent
Mary Anne Burges, John Bowdler, 1814

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burges, Mary Anne 1763 births 1813 deaths Writers from Edinburgh 19th-century Scottish women writers Scottish women novelists 19th-century Scottish novelists