{{Short description|English didactic novelist and writer}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2015}} {{Use British English|date=July 2015}} '''Charlotte Anley''' (1796–1893)<ref>AustLit site. [http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A124943 Retrieved 25 February 2014.]</ref> was an English didactic novelist and a writer on social and religious affairs. She was also a composer and a lyricist. As a Quaker, she spent the years 1836–1838 in Australia, researching for a report on women's prisons commissioned by Elizabeth Fry.<ref>AustLit site. [''The Prisoners of Australia. A Narrative'' (1841). By the author of Miriam... (London: J. Hatchard & Son, 1841). [https://archive.org/details/prisonersaustra00anlegoog Retrieved 25 February 2014.]</ref>
==Life== Anley's parents, place of birth on 17 February 1796<ref>AustLit....</ref> and education have not been traced. Her whereabouts through much of her life can only be surmised from indirect evidence.
The preface to the first edition of ''Influence'' is signed C. A., Forty Hill, Enfield, 9 February 1822.<ref name="google">{{cite book |author=Anley, C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SWcDAAAAQAAJ |title=Influence, by a lady – signing herself C.A. – |date=1824 |accessdate=8 July 2016}}</ref> That of ''Miriam'' is also signed C. A., but from Newport, Isle of Wight, February 1826, and dedicated to Miss Curry of Clanville, a hamlet in North Hampshire.<ref>British Fiction....</ref> A "Miss C. Anley, Isle of Wight" features in the list of subscribers to an 1826 novel entitled ''Edward'', attributed to the socially advanced author "The Duchess of Duras" (Claire de Duras) and translated from French.<ref>Google text. [https://books.google.com/books?id=_HawDpnvN5UC&dq=C.+Anley&pg=PR9 Retrieved 26 February 2014.]</ref> The 1853 edition ("second thousand") of ''Earlswood'' is signed from Sidcup, Kent, 12 June 1852, and bears a dedication to "The Right Honourable the Countess of Ellesmere and to her revered mother, the Lady Charlotte Greville", referring to the former, who can be identified as the wife of Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere, a politician and patron of the arts, as a "friend and benefactress".<ref name="google2">{{cite book |author=Anley, C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qz8OAAAAIAAJ |title=Earlswood: a tale for the times, and all time |date=1853 |publisher=T. Hatchard |accessdate=8 July 2016}}</ref> Lady Ellesmere lived at Hatchford Park, near Cobham, Surrey.
Before her departure for Australia, Anley was reported in the local almanac to be taking the waters at Carlsbad.<ref>"...a Miss Charlotte Anley, known... for her musical compositions, and an "''Essay on the distinction between body, soul and spirit''." Augustus Bozzi Granville: ''The Spas of Germany'' (Paris: Galignani, 1837), Vol. 2, p. 31.</ref> While in Australia she is known to have spent 15 months as a governess to the prominent Dumaresq family.<ref>Alan Atkinson and Marian Aveling: ''Australia, 1838'' (Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, 1987), p. 161.</ref> A modern scholar remarks, "Charlotte Anley, an English Quaker disciple of Elizabeth Fry, behaved in a warm and accepting way towards the most violent convict women at the Paramatta Factory. Their response is a most moving affirmation of the power of love."<ref>Miriam Dixson: ''The Real Matilda: Woman and Identity in Australia, 1788 to the Present'' (Penguin Books Australia, 1994) reports her reading of ''The Prisoners of Australia'', 1842 ed., pp. 18–29.</ref> A historian of religion notes that Anley "was surprised and thankful for having been 'so well received and so patiently heard' at the factory in 1836. Protestants and Catholics alike listened with 'perfect attention' to the story of the prodigal son, they accepted religious tracts with 'apparent pleasure'."<ref>Allan M. Grocott: ''Convicts, Clergymen and Churches: Attitudes of Convicts and Ex-Convicts Towards the Churches and Clergy in New South Wales from 1788 to 1851'' (Sydney UP, 1980), p. 86.</ref>
Charlotte Anley died on 6 April 1893 in Bath, Somerset.<ref>AustLit....</ref> ==Works== Anley's works include ''Influence. A Moral Tale for Young People'' (1822),<ref>By a Lady (London: L. B. Seeley & Son, 1822). The 1824 edition: [https://archive.org/details/influencebyalad00anlegoog Retrieved 25 February 2014.]</ref> still admired 20 years later by the child diarist Emily Pepys,<ref>''The Journal of Emily Pepys'' (London: Prospect, 1984), p. 28. The vivid diary of the ten-year-old Emily, daughter of Henry Pepys, bishop of Worcester, covers six months of 1844–45.</ref> ''Miriam, or The Power of Truth. A Jewish tale'' (1826),<ref>By the author of 'Influence' The first edition date is given as 1826 in British Fiction 1800–1829, along with details of several subsequent editions up to 1850. [http://www.british-fiction.cf.ac.uk/titleDetails.asp?title=1826A002 Retrieved 25 February 2014]. A later text (Philadelphia: Key & Biddle, 1836): [https://archive.org/details/miriamorpowertr00anlegoog Retrieved 25 February 2014.]</ref> and ''Earlswood. A Tale for the Times, and All Time'' (1852).<ref>By the author of 'Miriam', 'Influence' etc. (London: Thomas Hatchard, 1852). [https://archive.org/details/earlswoodatalef00anlegoog Retrieved 25 February 2014.] This was later subtitled ''Lights and Shadows of the Anglican Church''.</ref>
''Miriam'' was among a number of novels of the time dealing with Jewish conversion, in this case of an American girl, whom she transposes to Westmorland in the North of England. It was inspired by a report found by the author in ''The Cottage Magazine''.<ref>Google text. [https://books.google.com/books?id=wiEmAAAAMAAJ&q=Miriam+Charlotte+Anley Retrieved 25 February 2014.]</ref> In the words of a recent survey of women writers in that period, "Conversionists insist that modern Judaism erects its rituals as a last-ditch defense against what the Jews really suspect, namely, that the religion has lost its spiritual center. This claim is at work in Charlotte Anley's ''Miriam''..., which features a fairly representative 'Jewish' argument in favor of ritual."<ref>Brenda Ayres: ''Silent Voices. Forgotten Novels by Victorian Women Writers'' (Praeger, 2003), p. 7.</ref> The main female character of ''Earlswood'' departs from a Protestant Christian life for more ritualized Catholicism, but then realizes her mistake and thankfully returns to the former.<ref>Google text of first edition. [https://books.google.com/books?id=Qz8OAAAAIAAJ&q=Earlswood+Anley Retrieved 26 February 2014.]</ref>
Anley's report on the conditions for female prisoners in Australia appeared in 1841.<ref>''The Prisoners of Australia. A Narrative'' (1841). By the author of Miriam... (London: J. Hatchard & Son, 1841). [https://archive.org/details/prisonersaustra00anlegoog Retrieved 25 February 2014.] The dedication is to the London Committee of the British Ladies' Prison Visiting Association.</ref> Her 48-page ''Essay on the Distinction between Body, Soul, and Spirit'' came out in the same year.<ref>London : Hatchard & Son, 1841.</ref>
Anley also wrote verses and set them to music. Her works include ''The Harp of Bendemeer: a Ballad'', .<ref>For voice and piano (John Cole: Baltimore, c. 1824). Lied, Art Song, and Choral Text Archive. [http://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=55133 Retrieved 25 February 2014.]</ref> Other songs listed in the British Library are ''God Is Light. Hymn'' (1824), described at the time as "a pure and solemn composition,"<ref>''The Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review'', Vol. IX (1827), p. 135.</ref> ''Rest Warrior... Song'' (c. 1825), ''Oh Think not that this Heart is Gay. A Song'' (c. 1825), and ''Sweet Bird Repeat that Strain'' (c. 1874).<ref>British Library Main Catalogue. [http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?ct=&pag=&indx=1&dscnt=0&scp.scps=scope%3A(BLCONTENT)&frbg=&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1393415627315&srt=rank&ct=Next%20Page&mode=Basic&vl(488279563UI0)=any&dum=true&tb=t&indx=21&vl(freeText0)=C.%20Anley&fn=search&vid=BLVU1 Retrieved 26 February 2014.]</ref>
==Works online== *''Earlswood; or, Lights and Shadows of the Anglican church. A Tale for the Times'' [http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008664154 Retrieved 3 July 2015] *''Miriam; or, The Power of Truth. A Jewish Tale'' [http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008664154 Retrieved 3 July 2015] *''The Prisoners of Australia. A Narrative'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=j8wNAAAAQAAJ Retrieved 3 July 2015]
==References== {{Reflist|30em}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Anley, Charlotte}} Category:1796 births Category:1893 deaths Category:19th-century English novelists Category:Quaker writers Category:English children's writers Category:19th-century Quakers Category:English women religious writers Category:Victorian novelists Category:Victorian women writers Category:19th-century English women novelists