Horace Walpole

Her mother, born Margaret Pigott , came from a long-established Shropshire family and probably had literary interests, since she was a member of the circle of independent-minded women formed around Sarah Scott and Lady Barbara Montagu

Her father, Henry Seymour Conway , was an army officer who rose to be Field-Marshal. His distinguished military career was matched by his services to Whig politics. His literary interests made him a friend of...

Horace Walpole was Anne's godfather.

It was known that Lorne had been in the running before Blandford, who was financially and socially a better catch. Gossips speculated. Love-letters from Blandford, and a letter from the Duke of Marlborough welcoming EG

The Berrys met Walpole in winter 1787-8, some months before July 1788, when they settled at Twickenham Common, close to his gothic mansion, Strawberry Hill. He was a little past seventy, set...

She was a well-known figure in London cultural circles, particularly that of the Bluestockings. Charles Burney called her at-home evenings blue conversazioni's and Horace Walpole called them quite Mazarine-blue. Others specifically mentioned in...

AD 's wide circle of friends included Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire , Lady Melbourne , Joanna Baillie , Sarah Siddons , the Berrysisters , the dramatist Lady Elizabeth Craven (formerly Berkeley, later Margravine of Anspach)

FB 's friendship with Woffington led to her meeting Peg's sister Polly , who became her lifelong friend. Eight years older than Brooke, Polly Woffington was a close friend of Samuel Johnson , Sir Joshua Reynolds

Her later friendships often blended the personal with the political, like those with Beilby Porteus (Bishop of London from 1787, where she met him) and the abolitionists William Wilberforce (met at Bath the same year)...

She was an ornament of high society and sought out literary friends. She was, for instance, a long-term friend and correspondent of Horace Walpole , who published her writings on his private press at Strawberry Hill

Among Anne's personal friends and guests at her gatherings were Elizabeth Carter , Mary Delany , Elizabeth Montagu , Hester Thrale , her niece by marriage Joanna Baillie (whom she first met when Baillie came...

The literary society of ALB 's time was, as biographer Betsy Rodgers notes, small and intimate. Writers all knew each other and kept in touch; those who did not live in London visited frequently...

Walpole , son of the Prime Minister, had an ample allowance, as the middle-class Gray did not. Walpole was a socialite who delighted in the pleasures of Italy, and Gray felt neglected. Their subsequent estrangement...

In spring 1791 MB had a bad fall in Florence, but she suffered no long-term ill effects, despite Horace Walpole 's acute anxiety (then and when she was ill with a fever a few...

AD 's mastery of Latin and her respectable knowledge of Greek were self-acquired, though Horace Walpole had a hand in her education. She studied sculpture from childhood, being taught by Giuseppe Ceracchi , John Bacon