{\b Anna Laetitia Barbauld (née Aikin)}.

{\b Date of Birth}.: 20 June 1743

{\b Date of Death}.: 9 March 1825

{\b Works}.

English poet and essayist. She wrote poems, essays, pamphlets, pieces for 
children and critical prefaces. Her most notable writings were Poems (1773), 
Hymns in Prose for Children (1781), and especially Eighteen Hundred and Eleven 
(1812), a visionary poem in which she discusses the future prosperity of 
America. In much of her work, she generally sought to write in the manner of 
Samuel Johnson who praised her as one of the best imitators of his style.

{\b Featured Works}.

'Life! I Know Not What Thou Art', 'To the Lark', 'Tomorrow', 'To a Lady, With 
Some Painted Flowers', 'Ode to Spring'.

{\b General Comment}.

Born at Leicestershire, Barbauld attended the local school at Kibworth owned 
by her father, John Aikin who was also a Dissenting minister. After her 
studies at Warrington Academy, Lancashire, she married another Dissenting 
minister, Rochemont Barbauld, and together they opened their own school. Her 
husband was of French stock which probably accounts for their long visit there 
in 1785 and the translation of some of her work into French. He died in 1808, 
probably by suicide, and she became fully committed to her writing, beginning 
with the editing of a series of British Novelists (1810). By the time she died 
in 1825, she had made many friends who all spoke of her many talents and 
excellent moral qualities.