Anne Gilchrist (writer)

Anne Gilchrist (née Burrows; 25 February 1828 – 29 November 1885) was an English writer, best known for her connection to American poet Walt Whitman.

[1] She came from a distinguished Essex family, and married the art and literary critic Alexander Gilchrist in 1851 after a two-year engagement.

The Gilchrists' marriage, one of intellectual equals, was cut short when Alexander died of scarlet fever in 1861.

Her daughter Beatrice had originally caught the disease and then her son, Percy, suffered it as his sister recovered.

Percy had a successful career developing a new and economic way of making steel and Herbert was a minor painter.