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Ann Yearsley, née Cromartie (1753–1806), was an English poet and writer.

Born in Bristol to John and Anne Cromartie (described as a milkwoman). Ann Yearsley began her working life as a seller of milk. She was taught to read and write by family members and developed a taste for Edward Young and John Milton. She married John Yearsley, a poor yeoman farmer in 1774, and spent the following ten years developing her writing skills while carrying out the onerous duties of a farmer's wife and mother of six children

Ann Yearsley was later known as among the most talented and least popular successful peasant/laboring class writers of her era.

Supported by Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol, Yearsley published Poems, on Various Subjects in 1787. A Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave-Trade appeared in 1788. Her poem was considered by many critics to rival a similar poem written by her ex-patron Hannah More entitled, "Slavery: A Poem".

She turned to drama with Earl Goodwin: an Historical Play (performed in 1789 ; printed in 1791) and to novel-writing with The Royal Captives: a Fragment of Secret History, Copied from an Old Manuscript (1795). Her final collection of poetry, The Rural Lyre, appeared in 1796. She was one of many prominent Bristol women who campaigned against the Bristol slave trade.

Other poems followed, and over the 1790s Yearsley also produced plays and a novel. However, Yearsley was no longer financially reliant on her writing, as in 1793 she had opened a circulating library in Bristol which provided her main income from then until the death of John Yearsley in 1803. In that year she retired to Melksham in Wiltshire, where she died in 1806.

Yearsley vs More
Although Ann created a path for her own successes of the time, she is always, and most notably remembered, for her quarrels with her fellow women writer Hannah More. Contrary to what More later described Yearsley’s writing as she originally stated that Yearsley’s writing “thought her ear perfect and the structure of her blank verse so happy and varied, as even to appear skillful.” Yearsley’s first collection, Poems on Several Occasions published in 1785, contain themes such as domestic life and religious beliefs. The piece of work was successful but led to a disagreement about the splitting of the profits between More and Yearsley. This incident was the spark of the controversy between More and Yearsley, leading Yearsley to breaking off and finding other supporters. Frank Feisenstein (2002) describes their quarrels in his journal article titled Ann Yearsley and the Politics of Patronage ‘The Thorp Arch Archive: Part I. Feisenstein states that “her celebrated rift with Hannah More in 1785 has been promulgated as a key moment in the long struggle toward manumission and equality of status by women writers”

The connection between Ann Yearsley and Hannah More seem never ending. It is clear to see they had a strong impact on literature during this time. Their relationship is quite a peculiar one. An article by Kerri Adams states that More wrote a letter about Yearsley after she arguably followed More’s subject of slavery. More tells a friend that Yearsley acts more like a demon than a human. This clearly shows that the two had clashing personalities due to the fight for popularity. “Other scholars comment that the relationship between More and Yearsley was considered a “partnership in which each was emotionally invested.” Although More and Yearsley's relationship seemed impossible Yearsley's initial work would not have been possible without Hannah More as some say. More originally gave Yearsley patronage and publication with of course the exception of later commenting her work was “turbulent wickedness.”

Ann Yearsley's Style
Ann Yearsley was like other women authors at this time period that had more to say about her life than her actual work. One particular interesting trait about Yearsley is that many prestigious figures at this time period financially supported her for her work. They went as far as including Yearsley in a subscribing establishment, which was a big deal during this period and even bigger deal for women. These highly respected figures are men like Frederick Augustus Hervey, The Esterházy family, son of George III, and Henry Dundas. Another unique aspect of Yearsley's style is her way she carried out subscribers and/or patrons. Scholars claim that Yearsley developed a “hybrid form” of patronage. They even also believe that she uniquely blended together “elements of patronage with facets of literary network.” Patronage, friendship, and literacy relationships all started to overlap broadening patronage to a more vast network of supporters and friends. For readers, it is shocking to know that her editors described Ann Yearsley as “poor illiterate woman.” One critic even suggested that she used “ignorant and vulgar” syntax. Contrarily, Yearsley was neither illiterate or uneducated, she simply worked at the “low” occupation of selling milk and even more critical aspect, she was a woman.

Robert Southey's Biography for Ann Yearsley
Robert Southey wrote a biography of Ann Yearsley in the year 1831. He called his biography an "introductory essay on the lives and works of our uneducated poets". The biography describes the first encounter that Hannah More, the patron of Ann Yearsley, had and her general impressions of her capacity as a writer and poet. Hannah More described her first encounter with Ann Yearsley as positive. She stated that her writing "excited [her] attention" because it "breathed the genuine spirit of poetry, and [was] rendered still more interesting by a certain natural and strong expression of misery that seemed to fill the head and mind of the author". Hannah More went on to describe Ann Yearsley as a woman that was highly uneducated and that had been taught to write by her brother. Yearsley was living in destitution with six young infants born in the space of seven years, while caring for aged mother, when a man named Mr. Vaughn (a man frequently mentioned in Yearsley’s poetry) introduced her to Hannah More. Furthermore, Hannah More was impressed by Yearsley’s ability to interpret the leading literature of the age with such accuracy by stating that "without having ever conversed with any body above her own level, she seems to mess the general principles of sound taste and just thinking."

Yearsley based her style, grammar, and spelling based on the limited amounts of literature that she had read which included some Shakespearean plays, Paradise Lost, and Night-Thoughts among others. More describes Yearsley as not even having seen a dictionary or knowing anything of grammatical rules, and being bound to “ignorant and vulgar” syntax, yet using language full of metaphor, imagery, and personification. More described herself as striving to save Yearsley from the vanity of fame and was more concerned about providing food for her than providing fame. Eventually, a strong disagreement over money left the two estranged. According to Rose, More was repeatedly startled when the milk-maid drew on classical sources for the work. Plebeian poets were confined to the ghetto of folk poetry, during this time of great class prejudice.

Southey described Yearsley a writer "gifted with voice" but "that had no strain of her own whereby to be remembered". He further reported that for a time before her death she was reported to be deranged.

Works

 * Poems, on Several Occasions (1st edition, with preface by Hannah More, 1785) (Etexts)
 * Poems, on Several Occasions (4th edition, with new preface by Yearsley, 1786)
 * Poems, on Various Subjects (1787)
 * A Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave Trade (1788) (Etext)
 * Stanzas of Woe (1790)
 * Earl Godwin: An Historical Play (performed 1789; printed 1791)
 * The Royal Captives: a Fragment of Secret History, Copied from an Old Manuscript (4 vols., 1795)
 * The Rural Lyre: a Volume of Poems (1796)