Helen Maria Williams (1761 or 1762 – 15 December 1827) was a British novelist, poet, and translator of French-language works. A religious dissenter, she was a supporter of abolitionism and of the ideals of the French Revolution; she was imprisoned in Paris during the Reign of Terror, but nonetheless spent much of the rest of her life in France.
A controversial figure in her own time, the young Williams was favorably portrayed in a 1787 poem by William Wordsworth, but (especially at the height of the French Revolution) she was portrayed by other writers as irresponsibly politically radical and even as sexually wanton.
Famous quotes containing the words maria williams, maria and/or williams:
“In each event of life, how clear
Thy ruling hand I see!
Each blessing to my soul more dear,
Because conferred by Thee.”
—Helen Maria Williams (18th century)
“He reproduced himself with so much humble objectivity, with the unquestioning, matter of fact interest of a dog who sees himself in a mirror and thinks: there’s another dog.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926)
“By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northwest—a cold wind.”
—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)