Works
- Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, published in 1766 as a quarto edition by Thomas Davies with Johnson adding a preface and several prose and verse pieces. First advertised in 1750, there were waspish claims from Anna's friends that Johnson had not put himself out in getting it produced, though it was moderately successful and earned the author about £150.
- A dictionary of philosophical terms probably inspired by Johnson's own Dictionary - begun in 1754 but abandoned despite Johnson's support (he wrote to Richardson the printer that ‘she understands chimistry and many other arts’).
- Occasional verses, such as "On the Death of Sir Erasmus Philipps, Unfortunately Drowned in the River Avon".
Her Dictionary of National Biography entry states that "as a writer Williams had craft but not genius... capable effective if conventional ... verses". Miscellanies is a collection of disparate pieces, verse, prose, and dramatic fragments. Alexander Pope is an influence, as seen in this quotation:
- For me, contented with a humble state
- 'Twas ne'er my care, or fortune, to be great.
Read more about this topic: Anna Williams (poet)
Famous quotes containing the word works:
“Again we mistook a little rocky islet seen through the “drisk,” with some taller bare trunks or stumps on it, for the steamer with its smoke-pipes, but as it had not changed its position after half an hour, we were undeceived. So much do the works of man resemble the works of nature. A moose might mistake a steamer for a floating isle, and not be scared till he heard its puffing or its whistle.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We do not fear censorship for we have no wish to offend with improprieties or obscenities, but we do demand, as a right, the liberty to show the dark side of wrong, that we may illuminate the bright side of virtue—the same liberty that is conceded to the art of the written word, that art to which we owe the Bible and the works of Shakespeare.”
—D.W. (David Wark)
“There is a great deal of self-denial and manliness in poor and middle-class houses, in town and country, that has not got into literature, and never will, but that keeps the earth sweet; that saves on superfluities, and spends on essentials; that goes rusty, and educates the boy; that sells the horse, but builds the school; works early and late, takes two looms in the factory, three looms, six looms, but pays off the mortgage on the paternal farm, and then goes back cheerfully to work again.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)