Charlotee Brontë and Anne Mozley

Abstract

Anne Mozley was the only critic among her many critics whom Charlotee Brontë honoured with a public reply. Before entering into the points of controversy between them I must give some account of Anne Mozley.She was a sister of the Rev. Thomas Mozley, long a leader writer on the Times and author of picturesque Recollections of the Tractarian Movement, widely read when published, and highly praised by that fastidious critic Mark Pattison. Another and a greater brother was J. B. Mozley, who wrote some of the noblest sermons in the language. She was also connected, through marriage, with Cardinal Newman, whose earlier letters she edited. As might have been supposed, Miss Mozley was a devoted Churchwoman. She was a very able writer, preferring as a rule literary and ethical subjects. Her contributions to Blackwood were gathered into a volume after her death, with a preface by Bishop John Wordsworth. In a short-lived periodical of the time, Bentley1's Quarterly Review, she wrote what George Eliot considered the best article on “Adam Bede.” She was a contributor to the Saturday Review in its most brilliant days.