Chapter 8
Anne Thackeray Ritchie, undated. bMS Am 2016 (97). |
Anne Thackeray Ritchie, undated. At the approach of her 18th birthday in 1855, Anny wrote a friend, “I should like a profession so much – not to spend my life crochetting [sic] mending my clothes & reading novels – wh seems the employment of English ladies unless they teach dirty little children to read wh is well enough in its way – but no work to the mind…I think I should like to…become celebrated.” When Thackeray read Anny’s first published essay, which he printed in Cornhill, he wrote to James Fields, “When I read it…I blubbered like a child, it is so good, so simple, and so honest; and my little girl wrote it, every word of it.” Ultimately, Anny did become a celebrated author in her own right, publishing numerous novels, stories, and essays. |