Anna Weamys, sometimes referred to as Anne Weamys (

fl. ''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...

1651) was an English

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

. She has been identified as the author of the prose romance ''A Continuation of Sir

Philip Sydney Sir Philip Sidney (30 November 1554 – 17 October 1586) was an English poet, courtier, scholar and soldier who is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan age. His works include a sonnet sequence, '' Astrophil and ...

's Arcadia.''

Writing

Weamys has been identified as the author of the

prose Prose is language that follows the natural flow or rhythm of speech, ordinary grammatical structures, or, in writing, typical conventions and formatting. Thus, prose ranges from informal speaking to formal academic writing. Prose differs most n ...

romance ''A Continuation of Sir

's Arcadia'' (1651), which appeared under the name "Mistress A. W." Her motivation for completing Sidney's incomplete work are unknown. In her writing, Weamys presented a conclusion to the unresolved narratives with a multiple marriage ceremony for four couples at the end of the plot. Her work also included some political overtones and developed the plot of the character Mopsa, creating a parody of ballads and folk tales. A modern edition of Weamys' book was edited by Patrick Cullen and was published in 1994.

Identity

Little is known of Weamys' life, but Patrick Cullen situates her in the context of a network of

royalist A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of gove ...

sympathizers of the

English Civil War The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...

(1642–1651) and

interregnum An interregnum (plural interregna or interregnums) is a period of revolutionary breach of legal continuity, discontinuity or "gap" in a government, organization, or social order. Archetypally, it was the period of time between the reign of one m ...

, including aristocratic patron

Henry Pierrepont, 1st Marquess of Dorchester Henry Pierrepont, 1st Marquess of Dorchester, PC, FRSFRCP (March 16068 December 1680) was an English peer. He was the son of Robert Pierrepont, 1st Earl of Kingston-upon-Hull, and his wife, the former Gertrude Talbot, daughter of George Ta ...

and his daughters

Anne Manners, Lady Roos Anne Manners, Lady Roos (9 March 1631 – 1688), formerly Lady Anne Pierrepont, was the first wife of John Manners, 1st Duke of Rutland. Their marital break-up caused a sensation and their divorce, in 1670, on the grounds of Lady Roos's adulter ...

and Grace Pierrepont, writer

James Howell James Howell ( – ) was a Welsh writer and historian. The son of a Welsh clergyman, he was for much of his life in the shadow of his elder brother Thomas Howell (bishop), Thomas Howell, who became Lord Bishop of Bristol. Education In 1613 he ...

, printer William Bentley, bookseller Thomas Heath, and possibly poet Frances Vaughan (née Altham). Collins records in her ''

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from History of the British Isles, British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') ...

'' entry on Weamys that she was probably born in the 1630s and may have been the daughter of Dr Ludowick Weames (''d''. 1659). He was a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

clergyman whose living of

Lambourne Lambourne is a civil parish in the Epping Forest district of Essex, England. It is located approximately 4.5 miles (7 km) south of Epping and 5 miles (8 km) northwest of Romford. It covers an area of , and in 2001 its population was ...

in Essex, was sequestered and given to a

puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should b ...

minister in the 1640s. This identify is derived from secondary sources, such as a congratulatory letter from James Howell to "Dr Weames" recorded in ''

Epistolae Ho-elianae ''Epistolae Ho-Elianae'' (or ''Familiar Letters'') is a literary work by the 17th-century Anglo-Welsh historian and writer, James Howell. It was mainly written when Howell was in the Fleet Prison, during the 1640s; but its content reflects earlie ...

'' (1650). There is currently no information known about Weamys' life after the publication of her ''Arcadia'', or when she died.

Legacy

Weamys' work demonstrates how writing by Sidney was interpreted by his female readership and illustrate the development or prose as it became the to resemble the modern novel.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weamys, Anna 17th-century English writers 17th-century English women writers Women writers (Renaissance) Renaissance writers Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown