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Ann Taylor was an English poet and literary critic. In her youth she was a writer of verse for children, for which she achieved long-lasting popularity. In the years immediately preceding her marriage, she became an astringent literary critic of growing reputation. She is, however, best remembered as the elder sister and collaborator of Jane Taylor.

The literary family

The Taylor sisters were part of an extensive literary family, daughters of Isaac Taylor of Ongar. Ann was born in Islington and lived with her family at first in London and later in Lavenham in Suffolk, in Colchester and, briefly, in Ongar. The sisters' brother, Isaac Taylor, was, like his father, an engraver of considerable distinction and later became an educational pioneer and Independent minister and wrote a number of very successful instructional books for the young. Their mother, Mrs. (Ann Martin) Taylor (1757–1830) wrote seven works of moral and religious advice - in many respects, strikingly liberal for their time - two of them fictionalized.

Ann and Jane Taylor's brothers, Isaac and Jefferys, also wrote, the former being one of the most learned men of his day, a theologian of international reputation, but also the inventor of a patent beer tap in use throughout Britain for many years. Rev. Isaac Taylor's elder brother Charles edited The Literary Panorama, for which he also wrote extensively on many topics from art to politics, and..