Annie S. Swan

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Standard Name: Swan, Annie S.
Birth Name: Annie Shepherd Swan
Pseudonym: David Lyall
Pseudonym: The Author of The Land o' the Leal
Married Name: Annie Shepherd Burnett Smith
Indexed Name: Annie S. Burnett Smith
By the age of forty, just before the twentieth century began, ASS had published probably over thirty books.
Black, Helen C. Pen, Pencil, Baton and Mask: Biographical Sketches. Spottiswoode, 1896.
339
She claimed not to know her lifetime total, but it must have been approaching two hundred. The majority of her books were novels, and a large subdivision of these were serially published. She also wrote short stories, books of advice, political and religious works, poetry, and an autobiography. She was an outstanding public speaker and used this talent to the full. Some of her letters were published after her death. She said she was able to write love stories because her marriage enabled her to believe in love.
Swan, Annie S. My Life. Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1934.
276
Black and white photograph of Annie S. Swan, shown from the shoulders up. She is wearing a collared shirt with dark, wavy, chin-length hair.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Cultural formation John Oliver Hobbes
Her friend and fellow-writer Annie S. Swan (herself a broad-minded Unitarian) had a good deal to say about JOH 's conversion. She wondered what drew such a strong personality and advanced writer to the Catholic...
Family and Intimate relationships Margaret Forster
MF 's other grandmother, Agnes Forster , had a terrible last few years crippled with rheumatoid arthritis. The child Margaret was appalled at her pain and misery. At eight she would reluctantly read aloud to...
Friends, Associates John Oliver Hobbes
She made many friends and acquaintances both as a figure in society and as an author. These included literary people such as George Meredith , Thomas Hardy , Punch editor Owen Seaman , William Archer
Friends, Associates Ménie Muriel Dowie
As a public literary figure MMD moved amongst the major writers of her day. At the Women Writers' Dinner of the New Vagabonds Club in June 1895, she spoke alongside Adeline Sergeant , Christabel Coleridge
Leisure and Society Flora Annie Steel
FAS organized a women's banquet in London in celebration of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. She was concerned that events celebrating sixty years of rule by a woman were all being organized by men, and so...
Leisure and Society Beatrice Harraden
Annie S. Swan described BH (in connection with the great success of Ships that Pass in the Night) as small, dark, and vivacious. She had her hair cut in one of the first bobs...
Literary responses John Oliver Hobbes
This is a novel, a reviewer in The Bookman argued, that [f]ew will read . . . without experiencing a keen desire to discuss it, its teaching, its ideas, its morals, with the author....
Literary responses Mona Caird
The Daily Telegraph responded with an article headed Is Marriage a Failure?, which brought in about 27,000 letters in response and a parallel surge of letters in the USA in Cosmopolitan (showing, says Heilmann...
Literary responses Rosa Nouchette Carey
Elaine Hartnell argues that the reception of RNC 's work was tied somewhat to its modes and places of publication, notably her serialisation in journals edited by Ellen Wood , Charlotte Yonge , and Annie S. Swan
names John Oliver Hobbes
  • BirthName: Pearl Richards
  • Married: Craigie
    In addition to her pen-name, JOH also published under variants of her married name (such as Pearl Mary Craigie) although in doing so she would usually mention her more famous...
Occupation Mary Augusta Ward
By the 1890s MAW was an accomplished and sought-after public speaker.
Sutherland, John, b. 1938. Mrs. Humphry Ward. Clarendon Press, 1990.
132
On 25 June 1900 she was invited to chair the annual Women Writers' Dinner at the Trocadero restaurant, and to give the annual...
Publishing Helen Mathers
HM joined forces with Eliza Lynn Linton , Marie Leighton , Annie S. Swan , Evelyn Sharp , and Douglas B. Sladen to contribute to The Idler's Club an essay entitled Is Society a Pleasure or a Bore?
Mathers, Helen et al. “Is Society a Pleasure or a Bore?”. The Idlers’ Club, Vol.
9
, No. 6, July 1896, pp. 907-14.
912-13
Textual Production Gladys Henrietta Schütze
In her fifth novel, the political and perhaps somewhat doctrinaire The Road to Damascus, Henrietta Leslie (GHS ) challenged the values of a technological, industrial, dehumanised society.
Annie S. Swan was to use...
Textual Production Helen Mathers
The pseudonym David Lyall, still given to HM in 2014 by the electronic catalogue OCLC and by other reference books (including The Feminist Companion) was actually used not by her but solely by...

Timeline

1901: The publication of George Douglas Brown's...

Writing climate item

1901

The publication of George Douglas Brown 's novel The House with the Green Shutters marked the first attack on the Scottish school of fiction that was afterwards known as Kailyard.
Campbell, Ian. Kailyard. Ramsay Head, 1981.
7-17
Blake, George. Barrie and the Kailyard School. Arthur Barker, 1951.
9-18
Dickson, Beth. “Annie S. Swan and O. Douglas: Legacies of the Kailyard”. A History of Scottish Women’s Writing, edited by Douglas Gifford et al., Edinburgh University Press, 1997, pp. 329-46.
329, 340
Hart, Francis Russell. The Scottish Novel: From Smollett to Spark. Harvard University Press, 1978.
114

July 1918: Food rationing was introduced in Britain,...

Building item

July 1918

Food rationing was introduced in Britain, together with the institution of national food kitchens.
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
355

By early June 1925: The National Health Insurance scheme in Britain...

Building item

By early June 1925

The National Health Insurance scheme in Britain (established on 16 December 1911) was extended to provide pensions for contributors to the scheme, who had to be low-income and were chiefly male.
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
(3 June 1925): 14

Texts

Swan, Annie S., and D. Murray Smith. A Bitter Debt. Hutchinson, 1893.
Swan, Annie S. A Maid of the Isles. Hodder and Stoughton, 1924.
Swan, Annie S., and Richard Tod. A Victory Won. Hutchinson, 1895.
Swan, Annie S. Aldersyde. Oliphant, Anderson, and Ferrier, 1883.
Swan, Annie S., and Tom Scott. Carlowrie. Oliphant, Anderson, and Ferrier, 1884.
Swan, Annie S. “Editor’s Note”. The Letters of Annie S. Swan, edited by Mildred Robertson Nicoll, Hodder and Stoughton, 1945, p. v - vi.
Swan, Annie S. et al. Elizabeth Glen, M.B. Hutchinson, 1895.
Mathers, Helen et al. “Is Society a Pleasure or a Bore?”. The Idlers’ Club, Vol.
9
, No. 6, pp. 907-14.
Swan, Annie S. My Life. Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1934.
Swan, Annie S. Sheila. Oliphant, Anderson, and Ferrier, 1889.
Swan, Annie S. The Family Name. J. Leng, 1942.
Swan, Annie S. The Land o’ the Leal. Hodder and Stoughton, 1896.
Swan, Annie S. The Letters of Annie S. Swan. Editor Nicoll, Mildred Robertson, Hodder and Stoughton, 1945.
Swan, Annie S. The Pendulum. Hodder and Stoughton, 1926.
Swan, Annie S. The Shore Beyond. Hodder and Stoughton, 1932.
Swan, Annie S. The Woman at Home. Warwick Magazine Company.
Swan, Annie S. Ups and Downs. Charing Cross, 1878.
Swan, Annie S. Who Are the Heathen?. Hodder and Stoughton, 1942.