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Anna Letitia Barbauld (née Aikin)

(1743-1825), Poet and writer

Sitter in 6 portraits
A leading early Romantic writer, Barbauld's first publication, Poems (1773), was a popular and critical success. In 1774, she married Rochemont Barbauld, and the couple established a boarding school in Suffolk. Starting in her brother John Aikin's Monthly Magazine, Barbauld began contributing to periodicals and taking commissions from booksellers. She wrote for the Annual Review (1803-9), edited by her nephew Arthur Aikin, and provided prefaces to editions of Mark Akenside (1794) and William Collins (1797). Her most ambitious work was the poem Eighteen Hundred and Eleven (1812), a pessimistic view of the existing state and future prospects of Britain.

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Portraits in the Characters of the Muses in the Temple of Apollo

by Richard Samuel
oil on canvas, 1778
NPG 4905

Elizabeth Montagu (née Robinson); Anna Letitia Barbauld (née Aikin)

after Thomas Holloway
line engraving, published 1 July 1776
NPG D4458

Anna Letitia Barbauld (née Aikin)

by Thomas Holloway, after Unknown sculptor
line engraving, published 1785
NPG D1017

Anna Letitia Barbauld (née Aikin)

probably by George Noble, published by Alexander Hogg
line engraving, published 1 August 1786
NPG D14209

Anna Letitia Barbauld (née Aikin)

by John Chapman, after Unknown artist
stipple engraving, published 1798
NPG D4457

Anna Letitia Barbauld (née Aikin)

by Sir Emery Walker, after Henry Meyer
photogravure, circa 1907
NPG D4456

Related People

Arthur Aikin (nephew)
John Aikin (brother)

Groups

Place

Suffolk

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Anna Letitia Barbauld (née Aikin)