Anne Bradstreet Biography

Anne Bradstreet was born in Northhampton, England, in the year 1612. She was the daughter of Thomas Dudley, a leader of volunteer soldiers in the English Reformation and Elizabethan Settlement, and Dorothy Yorke, a gentlewoman of noble heritage and a well educated woman. When Anne was 16 she married Simon Bradstreet, a 25 year old assistant in the Massachusetts Bay Company who was the son of a Puritan minister. They emigrated to America in 1630. Anne and Simon had eight children together. Their home burned down one unfortunate night, leaving the family homeless. They eventually got back on their feet and started fresh. While her husband worked Anne spent her time reading her father's books and educating her children. Doing this inspired her to start writing poetry, but she had to do so secretly because women who wanted to pursue an intellectual enlightenment weren't approved of. However, her brother-in-law, John Woodbridge, copied her work down and later published it in England without her knowledge. He did however, admit to it in the preface of her first collection, "The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, By a Gentle Woman of Those Parts". Afterwards, she became ill after contracting tuberculosis and passed away on September 16, 1672 at the age of 60.


Anne Bradstreet Biography
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