Annie S. Swan CBE | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Annie Shepherd Swan (1859-07-08)8 July 1859 Mountskip,Gorebridge, Scotland |
| Died | 17 June 1943(1943-06-17) (aged 83) Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland |
| Pen name | Annie S. Swan, Annie S. Smith, David Lyall, Mrs Burnett-Smith |
| Occupation | Writer, novelist, journalist |
| Genre | Fiction,dramatic fiction,romantic fiction, non-fiction,advice,feminism, politics, religion,social commentary |
| Notable works | Aldersyde (1884) |
| Spouse | James Burnett Smith (1883–1927) |
Annie Shepherd Swan,CBE (8 July 1859 – 17 June 1943) was a Scottish journalist and fiction writer. She wrote mainly under her maiden name, but also asDavid Lyall and laterMrs Burnett Smith. A writer ofromantic fiction for women, she had over 200 novels, serials, stories and other fiction published between 1878 and her death.[1][2][3][4] She has been called "one of the most commercially successful popular novelists of the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries".[5] Swan was politically active in the First World War, and as asuffragist, aLiberal activist and founder-member and vice-president of theScottish National Party.
Swan was born on 8 July 1859 in Mountskip,Gorebridge, Scotland.[6] She was one of the seven children of Edward Swan (died 1893), a farmer and merchant, by his first wife, Euphemia Brown (died 1881). After her father's business failed, she attended school in Edinburgh, latterly at Queen Street Ladies College. Her father belonged to anEvangelical Union congregation, but she turned in adulthood to theChurch of Scotland. She persistently wrote fiction as a teenager.[7]
Her first publication wasWrongs Righted (1881), as a serial inThe People's Friend. This periodical she long saw as the mainstay of her career, although she contributed to many others.[8]
The novel that made her reputation wasAldersyde (1883), a romance set in theScottish Borders that was favourably reviewed. Swan received an autographed letter of appreciation fromLord Tennyson. Prime MinisterWilliam Ewart Gladstone wrote toThe Scotsman that he thought it "beautiful as a work of art" for its "truly living sketches of Scottish character".[9]
Later successes such asThe Gates of Eden (1887) andMaitland of Lauriston (1891) owed a debt to the fiction ofMargaret Oliphant, who was among her critics, accusing Swan's novels of presenting a stereotypical, unrealistic depiction of Scotland. In a review ofCarlowrie (1884), Oliphant went so far as to say Swan "presented an entirely distorted view of Scottish life."[8] Because of her dominance overWoman at Home, editor-in-chiefW. R. Nicoll often called itAnnie Swan's Magazine. She became editor of the magazine from 1893 to 1917.[3] While writing for theBritish Weekly, she became acquainted withS. R. Crockett andJ. M. Barrie, whose work like hers was given the unflattering epithetkailyard, an allusion to its parochialism and sentimentality.[7]
By 1898, Swan had published over 30 books,[2] mainly novels, many published serially. She also wrote poetry, stories and books on advice, politics and religion. In 1901,The Juridical Review reported that Swan's books were the most favoured by female inmates in Irish prisons.[10] In 1906, she was profiled in Helen Black'sNotable Women Authors of the Day. She is named as the favourite novelist of William Morel's sweetheart Lily inD. H. Lawrence'sSons and Lovers (1913).[11]
Swan used her maiden name for most of her career,[2][8] but occasionally the pseudonymsDavid Lyall and laterMrs Burnett Smith. She was a respectedpublic speaker involved in social and political causes such as theTemperance movement. She wrote books and novels on thesuffragist movement in Britain, often asDavid Lyall, such asMargaret Holroyd: or, the Pioneers (1910).[12][13] The novel used interconnecting stories that followed a young suffragette, Margaret Holroyd, and dealt with many real problems faced by suffragettes and suffragists, such as disapproval of family and friends, fear of public speaking, physical exhaustion and ethical dilemmas in a rebellious, sometimes militant atmosphere.[14]
She was involved in the Women's Suffrage movement herself, and was arrested during a window smashing raid in London, alongside a number of other Scottish women.[15]
From 1924 Swan ran another penny weekly,The Annie Swan Annual. She also wrote several popular novels at this time includingThe Last of the Laidlaws (1920),Closed Doors (1926) andThe Pendulum (1926).[4] After her husband's death in 1927,[2] Swan returned to Scotland, settling inGullane,East Lothian. In 1930, she received aCBE for her contribution to literature. She remained in politics, becoming a founding member of theScottish National Party[16] and its vice president.[17]
Swan married the schoolteacher James Burnett Smith (1857–1927) in 1883. They lived initially atStar of Markinch,Fife, where she befriended the Scottish theologianRobert Flint and his sister.[18] They moved two years later toMorningside, Edinburgh, where Burnett Smith became a medical student, and in 1893 to London, where their two children, Effie (1893–1973) and Eddie (born 1896), were born.[7]
While in London they became friends and neighbours with the writerBeatrice Harraden and withJoseph and Emma Parker at a later date inHampstead.[19][20] The family moved toHertford in 1908, where her son Eddie died in a shooting accident in September 1910.[7]
Swan's autobiographyMy Life appeared in 1934[3] and was reprinted six times within a year.[5] Her final published work was an article forHomes and Gardens, "Testament of Age", in March 1943. She died of heart disease three months later at her home in Gullane, on 17 June 1943.[7] A collection of her personal correspondence,The Letters of Annie S. Swan (1945) edited by Mildred Robertson Nicoll appeared two years later.
During theFirst World War, Swan resigned her editorial position and volunteered for theBritish war effort. She went to France on a morale-boosting tour and also worked with Belgian refugees.[7] Swan visited the United States in January 1918 and again after thearmistice at the end of the year. There she metHerbert Hoover, then head of theU.S. Food Administration and lectured on the need to conserve food on theAmerican home front and informed the American public of Britain's wartime contributions.[21] Two successful plays,Getting Together byJohn Hay Beith andThe Better 'Ole byBruce Bairnsfather, were written for the occasion.[22] While in the United States, she also wrote a book on the cultural differences between women in Britain and the United States entitled:As Others See Her: An Englishwoman's Impressions of the American Woman in War Time (1919).
Swan was an activeLiberal throughout her life and became a well-knownsuffragist. Shortly after theRepresentation of the People Act 1918 gave women the vote in Britain, she was the first female candidate, standing unsuccessfully for theMaryhill division ofGlasgow in thegeneral election of 1922.[23] Of 32 female candidates across Britain in that general election, only two were returned.[24]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | John William Muir | 13,058 | 47.3 | ||
| Unionist | Sir William Mitchell-Thomson | 10,951 | 39.6 | ||
| Liberal | Annie Burnett Smith | 3,617 | 13.1 | ||
| Majority | 2,107 | 7.7 | |||
After her defeat, theWomen's Freedom League claimed that Swan and other female candidates would have been elected under a system ofproportional representation like those in Ireland, Netherlands and Germany.[25] She was also a founding member and one-time vice president of theScottish National Party.[16][17]
Swan's husband died in 1927 and she and her daughter moved toGullane,East Lothian. She was made aCBE in the1930 Birthday Honours for literary and public services.[26] She died at her home in Gullane on 17 June 1943, aged 83.[6]
In the years since her death, there has been little study of her life or work by literary historians. Articles such as Edmond Gardiner's "Annie S. Swan - Forerunner of Modern Popular Fiction" (1974) and Charlotte Reid's "A Cursory of Inspection to Annie S. Swan" (1990) point to her literary contributions. Several of her novels have reappeared.[27]
"Appendix of Living Writers/Smith, Mrs. Burnett ("Annie S. Swan")",A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, 1910, p. 449 – viaWikisource
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