Anna Maria Hall

Anna Maria Hall (6 January 1800 – 30 January 1881) was an Irish novelist who often published as "Mrs. S. C. Hall". She married Samuel Carter Hall, a writer on art, who described her in Retrospect of a Long Life, from 1815 to 1883. She was born Anna Maria Fielding in Dublin, but left Ireland for England at the age of 15. Life Hall was born in Dublin on 6 January 1800. She lived with her mother, a widow named Sarah Elizabeth Fielding, and stepfather, George Carr of Graigie, Wexford, until 1815. The daughter came to England with her mother in 1815. Anna Maria was educated in part by Frances Arabella Rowden, who was not only a poet, but, according to Mary Mitford, "had a knack of making poetesses of her pupils" This ties Anna Maria to other of Rowden's pupils such as Rosina Doyle Wheeler, later Rosina Bulwer Lytton; Caroline Posonby, later Lady Caroline Lamb; the poet Letitia Elizabeth Landon ("L.E.L."); and Emma Roberts, the travel writer. On 20 September 1824, she married Samuel Carter Hall. Her mother lived with them in London until she died. Mrs Hall's first recorded contribution to literature is an Irish sketch called "Master Ben", which appeared in The Spirit and Manners of the Age, January 1829, pp. 35–41 et seq. Other tales followed. Eventually they were collected into a volume entitled Sketches of Irish Character, 1829, and henceforth she became an author by profession. Next year she issued a little volume for children, Chronicles of a School-Room, consisting of a series of simple tales.