| Anna Cora Mowatt |
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Anna Cora Ogden Mowatt (March 5, 1819-July 21, 1870), author and actress, was born in . This bent was encouraged by her father and later by her husband, James Mowatt, a well-to-do New York attorney thirteen years her senior with whom she eloped at the age of fifteen, on October 6, 1834. Mrs. Mowatt's early married life was spent at Melrose, a handsome estate in Flatbush , Long Island , where she and her husband entertained New York society and many literary figures of the day. They had no children. At seventeen she published a flamboyant verse narrative, ''Pelayo,'' or ''The Cavern of Covadonga'' (1836), which, appearing under the name ''Isabel,'' received slight notice, and most of that unfavorable. The author promptly replied to her critics in heroic couplets with a volume entitled ''Reviewers Reviewed'' (1837), which was received with considerable respect. In 1837 Mrs. Mowatt developed symptoms of Tuberculosis and went abroad for her health, spending several months in Germany diligently learning the language and reading German literature. Her health improved greatly, but illness threatening a loss of eyesight now struck her husband, who had joined her in 1838. The Mowatts went to Paris to consult the celebrated Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, founder of Homeopathy , and there Mrs. Mowatt met such notables as Mrs. Frances Trollope, Lady Bulwer, and Madame de Lasteyrie, the daughter of Lafayette; articles describing this stay later appeared in ''Godey's Lady's Book,'' ''Graham's Magazine,'' and other American periodicals. In 1840, with James Mowatt's eyesight restored, the couple returned to the United States and resumed life at Melrose. At a grand ball given to celebrate their homecoming Mrs. Mowatt presented an original verse drama, ''Gulzara,'' or ''The Persian Slave'' (published, 1841, in the ''New World''), in which she played the leading part. James Mowatt's health, however, now declined into invalidism, and in the fall of 1841 he lost his fortune through speculation. Forced to assume their support, Mrs. Mowatt, lacking experience in practical affairs, turned to the one talent of which she felt confident and embarked on a series of public poetry readings. This novel venture met with great success in Boston, , a formidable miscellany of poems, articles, and biographies, as well as manuals on cooking, etiquette, the care of the sick, household management, and needlework, some of these Ghostwritten for the well-known English author "Mrs. Ellis" (Sarah Stickney Ellis). She also wrote two novels, ''The Fortune Hunter'' (1844), a realistic story of New York life, and ''Evelyn'' (1845), the latter of which appeared under her own name. Besides writing and the care of her husband, Mrs. Mowatt now had charge of three children whom she had rescued from the slums--Margaret, John, and Willie Grey--to whom she remained deeply attached. The struggle for existence was complicated by frequent bouts with tuberculosis, from which she found relief in Mesmerism . But the chief support of her unflagging will was a deep religious faith; from the early days of their marriage she and James Mowatt had been dedicated Swedenborgians . It was at the suggestion of Epes Sargent, a New York journalist who was her literary mentor and close friend, that Mrs. Mowatt turned to playwriting. The five-act comedy ''Fashion,'' her best-known work, was written in a few weeks in the spring of 1845 and accepted at once for production at the Park Theatre . The play was a pronounced hit, running for three weeks. During the author's lifetime it was given throughout the United States, in London and Dublin, and elsewhere in the British Isles. Fashion is a bright satire on New York high life of the 1840's, and though it is larded with sentimentality, with numerous borrowings from Sheridan and Beaumarchais, the tone of high comedy is sustained throughout. In modern times ''Fashion'' has had numerous performances by college and little theater groups and two professional revivals in New York (1924 and 1959), a distinction enjoyed by no other American play written before 1850. The production of ''Fashion'' brought Mrs. Mowatt for the first time in touch with the working theater. She now accepted a tempting offer to appear on the stage herself, undismayed by the scandalized amazement of many of her acquaintances. Her successful debut at the Park Theater, June 13, 1845, as Pauline in ''The Lady of Lyons,'' marked the beginning of one of the most remarkable careers in the history of the American theater. Without the usual rigorous apprenticeship, Mrs. Mowatt started at the top of the profession and for eight years held a place among the foremost actresses of the English-speaking stage. On repeated tours in America, and for several seasons in England (1847-51), she delighted audiences with her portrayals of Shakespeare's Juliet, Desdemona , Beatrice, Rosalind , and Viola , as well as heroines of contemporary plays. Anna Mowatt had a slight, graceful figure, fine, bold features, deep blue eyes, and masses of auburn hair, but it was the naturalness of her style, her beautifully modulated voice, and the fire and intelligence of her interpretations that won high praise from critics like Edgar Allan Poe and the British writers John Oxenford and George Henry Lewes . Her life on the stage and her earlier history are related in her lively and unassuming ''Autobiography of an Actress'' (1854), an important source book for the British and American stage of the mid-nineteenth century. James Mowatt, who had been constantly at his wife's side throughout the years, died in London in 1851. This loss, followed shortly by another shock, the suicide of her London manager Walter Watts, long enamored of her, brought on a complete collapse, and she returned to America that year. She played for two more seasons, traveling as far as New Orleans, and made her last stage appearance on June 3, 1854. Three days later, she was married to William Foushee Ritchie, editor of the ''Richmond Enquirer,'' and moved to Virginia . In Richmond she was energetic in the movement, led by Ann Pamela Cunningham, to acquire Mount Vernon for a national shrine and worked effectively to persuade the Virginia legislature to grant a charter to the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, of which she became vice-regent for Virginia. She also published ''Mimic Life'' (1856), a collection of three tales based on her theatrical experiences, and in 1857 a novel, ''Twin Roses''. Her second marriage proved unhappy, and at the outbreak of the Civil War she left her husband and returned to the North. In 1861 she went to live in Europe, settling first in Florence and later in London. Though by now hopelessly ill, she continued to write, publishing two more novels (1865 and 1866) and a collection of short pieces in 1867. Her last two years were spent in England at Twickenham , where she died of tuberculosis at the age of fifty. She was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery , London, beside her first husband. BIBLIOGRAPHY . The principal sources are her ''Autobiography'' and other writings, her surviving letters (scattered holdings, including a small collection at the Schlesinger Library , Radcliffe College), and contemporary press reports. Other important sources are memoirs of her by Mary Howitt , in ''Howitt's Journal'', Mar. 4, 11, and 18, 1848, and by Bayle Bernard in ''Tallis's Drawing-Room Table Book'' (London), 1851. Marius Blesi, "The Life and Letters of Anna Cora Mowatt" (unpublished doctoral Dissertation , Univ. of Va., 1938), gives a full treatment of her literary career. See also Imogene McCarthy, "Anna Cora Mowatt and Her Am. Audience" (unpublished master's thesis, Univ. of Md., 1952), especially useful on her Richmond life, which is also touched upon in Marion Harland, "Personal Recollections of a Christian Actress," Our Continent, Mar. 15, 1882, and in Marion Harland's ''Autobiography'' (1910). Also pertinent are the standard memoirs and histories of the theater in this period, including George C. D. Odell's ''Annals of the N.Y. Stage,'' vols. IV and V (1928-31), and Brander Mathews and Laurence Hutton, eds., ''Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the U.S.'' (1886). For genealogy, see William O. Wheeler, comp., ''The Ogden Family in America'' (1907). Birth record from Archives Municipales de Bordeaux; death record from Gen. Register Office, London. |
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