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Helen Maria Williams was one of three daughters born to Charles Williams and Helen Hay. Her father Charles was an army officer of Welsh descent while her mother was Scottish. While Williams gave her date of birth as late as 1769, it is probable that she was born in 1761. Her father died in 1769 and she, her mother, and her two sisters moved to Berwick-upon-Tweed. She was educated by her mother, developing her intellect according to principles of the religious Dissent and the subsequently spawned Enlightenment. Williams moved with her mother to London in 1781 where they were joined by her sisters Cecilia and Persis. Like most female authors of the time, to facilitate publication of her works, Williams sought the mentorship of a male author in Dr. Andrew Kippis. He helped her publish her first work Edwin and Eltruda, A Legendary Tale (1782). In 1783, Williams published An Ode on the Peace regarding the end of the American Revolution. She she followed this with Peru: A Poem; in Six Cantos (1784), both published with the help of Dr. Kippis. She published Poems (1786) which was dedicated to the Queen of England. In 1788 Williams took up a common political interest of women writers at the time with On the Bill...for Regulating the Slave-Trade. In early 1790 Williams published her first novel, Julia: A Novel; Interspersed with Some Poetical Pieces, a passionate story inspired by the works of such authors as Sophia Lee and Frances Burney. Julia also included a poem entitled The Bastille, A Vision which, according to M. Ray Adams in his essay, "Helen Maria Williams and the French Revolution," was the first, "outright expression of her revolutionary sympathies" (96). Williams quickly became an enthusiast and supporter of the French Revolution and her interest in the politics therein was to distinguish her life greatly from those of her more moderate contemporaries.
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