Ann Taylor (poet)

Their mother, Mrs (Ann Martin) Taylor (1757–1830) wrote seven works of moral and religious advice in many respects liberal for their time, two of them fictionalized.

Their elder brother Charles Taylor edited The Literary Panorama, for which he wrote on topics from art to politics, and produced anonymously a massive annotated translation of Augustin Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible.

Her style is strong and vivid, and when she was not too preoccupied with moral and religious themes, she tended, like her sister Jane, to pessimism about her own spiritual worth – it is often shot through with a pleasing and sometimes acerbic wit.

[3] Original Poems for Infant Minds by several young persons (by Ann and Jane, Adelaide O'Keeffe, and others) was first issued in 1804, and when it proved successful, a second volume followed in 1805.

[4] While Tomkins was inspired by the attitudes of Lady Emma Hamilton, later illustrators of "My Mother," such as Walter Crane in 1873,[5] reflected changing ideologies of motherhood as well as the artistic style of the Arts and Crafts Movement.

Ruwe identifies Ann's "The Hand-Post" as an interesting example of the clash between Romantic-era Gothic literature for adults and the different expectations of children's texts.

[8] Stewart cites a copy of Rhymes for the Nursery belonging to a nephew, Canon Isaac Taylor, annotated to show the respective authorship of Ann and Jane.

On 24 December 1813, Ann married Joseph Gilbert, an Independent (later Congregational) minister and theologian, and left Ongar for a new home far from her family, at Masborough near Rotherham.

A widower of 33, Gilbert had proposed to Ann before he even met her, forming a sound estimate of her character and intelligence from her writings, particularly as a trenchant critic in The Eclectic Review.