Anne Thackeray Ritchie

Anne Thackeray Ritchie
Portrait of Anne Thackeray Ritchie, 1870
Born
Anne Isabella Thackeray

(1837-06-09)9 June 1837
London, England
Died26 February 1919(1919-02-26) (aged 81)
Freshwater, England
OccupationWriter
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1877; died 1912)​
Children2
Parents
RelativesHarriet Stephen (sister)
Signature

Anne Isabella, Lady Ritchie (née Thackeray; 9 June 1837 – 26 February 1919) was an English writer and the eldest daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray. Her novels were well received during her lifetime, establishing her reputation in the literary world of late Victorian Britain. She is particularly remembered for her role in preserving her father's literary legacy and for short fiction that reworked fairy tales in Victorian settings.

Life

Anne Isabella Thackeray was born in London, the eldest daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray and his wife Isabella Gethin Shawe (1816–1894). She had two younger sisters: Jane, born in July 1838, who died in March 1839 at eight months, and Harriet Marian, known as "Minny" (1840–1875), who married Leslie Stephen in 1867. Anne, whom her father called Anny, spent her childhood in France and England. She and Minny were accompanied for a time by the future poet Anne Evans.

In 1877, she married her cousin Richmond Ritchie, who was 17 years younger than her. They had two children, Hester and Billy. When Richmond was knighted in 1907, Anne became Lady Ritchie. She was a step-aunt of Virginia Woolf, who wrote an obituary of her for The Times Literary Supplement. She is also thought to have inspired the character of Mrs Hilbery in Woolf's novel Night and Day.

Lady Ritchie, photographed around 1890

Literary career

Ritchie made her literary debut in 1860 with "Little Scholars", an essay published anonymously in Cornhill Magazine, which was then edited by her father. He encouraged her writing, and she went on to contribute short stories and serialised novels to the magazine. The success of The Story of Elizabeth, published in book form in 1863, helped her establish a literary reputation of her own.

Her fiction explored family relationships, women's choices and the expectations surrounding marriage in Victorian society. Through domestic situations and female characters, she examined gender inequality and social conventions, often without openly rejecting those conventions. Literary critics have identified in her short fiction a cautious challenge to prevailing ideas about marriage and domesticity. She also adapted familiar fairy tales, including Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood, placing their stories in recognisably contemporary settings.

One of the earliest known English formulations of the proverb about teaching someone to fish appears in her novel Mrs. Dymond (1885): "if you give a man a fish he is hungry again in an hour. If you teach him to catch a fish you do him a good turn." The wording differs from the more familiar modern version, which contrasts feeding someone for a day with feeding them for a lifetime.

Ritchie's novels found readers beyond Britain and were praised by contemporaries including George Eliot. Over time, she increasingly turned from fiction to essays, literary reminiscences and biographical writing, with a particular interest in women writers. She also contributed introductions to works by other authors. For many years she hesitated to write about her father, who had expressed the wish that no biography of him should be written. She eventually prepared biographical introductions for editions of his collected works. Her work helped shape his posthumous reputation, even as her own fiction gradually fell out of print.

Works

The following is a partial list.

Novels and longer fiction

  • The Story of Elizabeth. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1863.
  • The Village on the Cliff. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1867. The Village on the Cliff: With Other Stories and Sketches. Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co. 1869.
  • Old Kensington. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1873. Reprint. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1875.
  • Miss Angel. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1875. Miss Angel and Fulham Lawn. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1884.
  • From an Island: A Story and Some Essays (PDF). Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz. 1877. Its principal story is a semi-autobiographical novella
  • Mrs. Dymond. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885. Mrs. Dymond: A Novel. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1885. Reprint. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz. 1886. Reprint. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1890.

Short fiction and story collections

Essays and biographies

Introductions and contributions to other works

  • Introductory notes to The Orphan of Pimlico by William Makepeace Thackeray: The Orphan of Pimlico, and Other Sketches, Fragments and Drawings. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1876.
  • Preface to a collection by Anne Evans: Anne Evans: Poems and Music. London: C. Kegan Paul & Co. 1880.
  • Preface to Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell: Cranford. London: Macmillan & Co. 1891.
  • Introduction to The Fairy Tales of Madame d'Aulnoy by Madame d'Aulnoy: The Fairy Tales of Madame d'Aulnoy, Newly Done into English. Translated by Annie Macdonell and Miss Lee. London: Lawrence & Bullen. 1892.
  • Introduction to Our Village by Mary Russell Mitford: Our Village. London: Macmillan & Co. 1893. The introduction is also available through the Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature Digital Collection
  • Reminiscences and text for Alfred, Lord Tennyson and His Friends: A Series of 25 Portraits and Frontispiece in Photogravure. London: T. Fisher Unwin. 1893.
  • Introduction to Castle Rackrent and The Absentee by Maria Edgeworth: Castle Rackrent and The Absentee. London: Macmillan & Co. 1895.
  • Introduction to Ormond by Maria Edgeworth: Ormond. London: Macmillan & Co. 1895.
  • Introduction to Popular Tales by Maria Edgeworth: Popular Tales. London: Macmillan & Co. 1895.
  • Introduction to Helen by Maria Edgeworth: Helen. London: Macmillan & Co. 1896.
  • Introduction to Belinda by Maria Edgeworth: Belinda. London: Macmillan & Co. 1896.
  • Introduction to The Parent's Assistant by Maria Edgeworth: The Parent's Assistant, or Stories for Children. London: Macmillan & Co. 1897.
  • Biographical introductions to The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray. The Biographical Edition. Vol. I–XIII. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1899. The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray. The Centenary Edition. Vol. I–XXVI. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1910–1911.

Posthumous collections

Translations

  • Le roman d'Élizabeth, suivi de Grace Darling et des Régates universitaires (in French). Translated by Étienne Marcel. 1868.
  • Sur la falaise (in French). Translated by Étienne Marcel. Paris: Hachette. 1882.
  • Manuela D'Amore, ed. (2018). La bella e la bestia (in Italian). Lugano: Agorà & Co. ISBN 9788889526224.

References

Citations

  1. 1 2 Taylor, D. J. "Ritchie, Anne Isabella, Lady Ritchie (1837–1919)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35761. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ↑ "A Victorian Legacy: Anne Thackeray Ritchie's Life and Writings". Eton College Collections.
  3. ↑ "Anne Thackeray Ritchie". Orlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present. Cambridge University Press.
  4. ↑ "The Beginnings of a Literary Legacy". Eton College Collections.
  5. ↑ "Harriet Stephen". Orlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present. Cambridge University Press.
  6. ↑ "Sir Leslie Stephen papers, 1861–1959". Duke University Libraries.
  7. ↑ Blain, Clements & Grundy 1990, p. 346.
  8. ↑ Kaul, Chandrika. "Ritchie, Sir Richmond Thackeray Willoughby". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35764. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  9. ↑ "Anne Thackeray Ritchie collection (MS 430)". Eton College Library.
  10. ↑ "A Victorian Legacy: Anne Thackeray Ritchie's Life and Writings". Eton College Collections.
  11. ↑ Aplin 2011, p. xi.
  12. ↑ Munnelly, Lindsay Marie (2011). "Anne Thackeray Ritchie". Indiana University, Victorian Women Writers Project.
  13. 1 2 "An Introduction to A Victorian Legacy". Eton College Collections.
  14. 1 2 "Anne Thackeray Ritchie". Orlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present. Cambridge University Press.
  15. ↑ Mourão 2001, pp. 57–75.
  16. ↑ "Five Old Friends, and A Young Prince". At the Circulating Library: A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901.
  17. ↑ Ritchie 1886, p. 95.
  18. 1 2 "The Writer and Her World, Part Two: 1875–1919". Eton College Collections.
  19. ↑ "Five Old Friends: and, A Young Prince". The Huntington Library.
  20. ↑ "A Book of Sibyls: Mrs. Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Opie, Miss Austen". The Morgan Library & Museum.
  21. ↑ "Records of Tennyson, Ruskin and Browning (1892)". Eton College Library.
  22. ↑ "From the Porch (1913)". National Library of Ireland.
  23. ↑ "The Orphan of Pimlico (1876)". Eton College Library.
  24. ↑ "Anne Evans: Poems and Music (1880)". Eton College Library.
  25. ↑ "Alfred, Lord Tennyson and His Friends (1893)". Eton College Library.
  26. ↑ "The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray (1899)". Eton College Library.
  27. ↑ "From Friend to Friend (1919)". Eton College Library.
  28. ↑ "Letters of Anne Thackeray Ritchie (1924)". Eton College Library.
  29. ↑ "Étienne Marcel (1832–1913)" (in French). Bibliothèque nationale de France.
  30. ↑ "Étienne Marcel: œuvres textuelles" (in French). Bibliothèque nationale de France.
  31. ↑ "La bella e la bestia" (in Italian). University of Catania. 2018.

Bibliography

  • Aplin, John (2010). The Inheritance of Genius: A Thackeray Family Biography, 1798–1875. Cambridge: Lutterworth Press. ISBN 9780718892241.
  • Aplin, John (2011). Memory and Legacy: A Thackeray Family Biography, 1876–1919. Cambridge: Lutterworth Press. ISBN 9780718892258.
  • Aplin, John, ed. (2011). The Correspondence and Journals of the Thackeray Family. Vol. 1–5. London: Pickering & Chatto. ISBN 9781851966400.
  • Auerbach, Nina; Knoepflmacher, U. C., eds. (1993). Forbidden Journeys: Fairy Tales and Fantasies by Victorian Women Writers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226032047.
  • Blain, Virginia; Clements, Patricia; Grundy, Isobel (1990). The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present Day. London: Batsford. ISBN 0713458488.
  • Garnett, Henrietta (2004). Anny: A Life of Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie. London: Chatto & Windus. ISBN 0701171294.
  • Martin, Ann (2006). Red Riding Hood and the Wolf in Bed: Modernism's Fairy Tales. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0802090869.
  • Mourão, Manuela (2001). "Negotiating Victorian Feminism: Anne Thackeray Ritchie's Short Fiction". Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature. 20 (1): 57–75. doi:10.2307/464467.

See also