Ann Doherty
English novelist and playwright
Ann Doherty (c. 1786 – c. 1831/1832) was an English novelist and playwright, who corresponded with Robert Southey. Her father, Thomas Holmes (1751–1827), was a wealthy East India merchant from Worcestershire, who changed his name to Hunter on inheriting an estate, Gobions in North Mymms, Hertfordshire, through his wife, the daughter of the Governor of Bombay, William Hornby.
Relationships
Ann Holmes, said to have "a very superior intellect" and much wealth as a child, wrote at the age of 15 a number of excited love letters and verses to Hugh Doherty, an Irish ex-dragoon, who was twice her age when they married. However, she left him and their baby in 1806, after which Hugh Doherty published a book entitled The Discovery, which included her letters and related that they had eloped after Ann's parents had confined her in a private madhouse.
In 1811, Hugh Doherty brought a successful action against the architect Philip William Wyatt (died 1835) for "criminal conversation" with his wife, but received only £1000 in damages, not the £20,000 he had claimed. Her relationship with Wyatt was over by 1818, when she was calling herself Ann Attersoll, presumably referring to cohabitation with the wealthy merchant and banker John Attersoll (c. 1784–1822), who had briefly been a Whig MP for Wootton Bassett in 1812–1813.
By 1820, Ann Doherty was living under the name St Anne Holmes in France, where she remained.
Writings
As an author, Ann Doherty published anonymously or as "St Anne". Her novels "tended towards an Ossianic, flowery style" with heroines of "a high degree of feminine softness".
The public source identifies “Ann Doherty” as english novelist and playwright. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Doherty, English and novelist.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ann Doherty” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.