The Fierce Convictions of Hannah More

She may be the most famous person I never heard of.

Hannah More (1745-1833) wrote plays for the great 18^th century actor David Garrick. She was a friend of Dr. Johnson (yes, Boswell’s Dr. Johnson). She knew the painter Sir Joshua Reynolds. And Horace Walpole. And Edmund Burke. She worked closely for decades with William Wilberforce to outlaw slavery, and died a few months after seeing that cause successful. She was a poet, and an educator, an intellectual when women intellectuals were frowned upon.

Karen Swallow Prior brings More to life in Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More, Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist. It’s a biography, yes. But it’s more than that as well, a work of love reflecting a determination to bring to life a human being who should not have been forgotten.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Painting of Hannah More by H.W. Pickersgill (1821).