Anna Bartlett Warner was an American writer, the author of several books, and of poems set to music as hymns and religious songs for children.
Background
Anna Bartlett Warner was the daughter of Henry Whiting and Anna (Bartlett) Warner, and was descended on both sides from old New England families. Her grandfather, Jason Warner, owned a farm in Canaan, N. Y. , and served several terms in the state Assembly. Her father was also a lawyer, and was the author of The Liberties of America (1853) and several other books. Anna Warner was born in New York City, where the family for sometime maintained a residence. Her mother died soon after she was born, and she and her elder sister, Susan, were brought up by their aunt, Frances L. Warner. Her early summers were spent in the home of her paternal grandfather in Canaan, but in 1836 her father purchased Constitution Island, in the Hudson River near West Point, intending to use a farmhouse on the island as a summer residence. Severe financial reverses, however, in 1837 forced him to give up his city home, and from that time on, for the most part, the family spent both winters and summers at Constitution Island, though the father was often absent on business, and the two daughters made occasional visits to friends. Constitution Island, which they usually called by the older name of Martelaer's Rock, remained the home of both Susan and Anna Warner as long as they lived. After 1837 the Warner sisters had to learn to economize, and, as they grew older, they sought to aid with the family expenses. When she was in her early twenties, Anna invented a game called "Robinson Crusoe's Farmyard, " and she and her sister earned a little money by coloring cards to accompany the game.
Career
Under the name of Amy Lothrop she began writing stories for children, and, after the success of her sister's first novel, The Wide, Wide World, in 1851, she attempted a novel, Dollars and Cents (1852). Like her sister's Queechy, it made use of both childhood memories of Canaan and more recent experiences with poverty. In 1860 she collaborated with her sister in writing Say and Seal, but in general she devoted herself to books for children. Both with her sister and alone she wrote Bible stories, collections of edifying tales for Sunday school libraries, and Sunday school lessons. Such publications as Mr. Rutherford's Children and Wych Hazel (1876), which the two sisters wrote together, proved profitable to their authors as well as instructive to their readers. Alone Anna wrote Stories of Vinegar Hill, The Fourth Watch (copyright 1872), and various works on gardens, such as Gardening by Myself (1872). Mr. Warner died in 1875 and Susan Warner in 1885. Anna Warner continued to live on Constitution Island, with a servant, and for a few years more continued to write. In 1909 she published a memoir of her sister. She also carried on the Sunday Bible class which her sister had begun for cadets at the United States Military Academy. The sisters took a strong interest in the Academy, at which their uncle, Thomas Warner, was for ten years chaplain and professor. It was their desire that their island should be attached to the property of the academy, and this was made possible by Mrs. Russell Sage shortly before Anna's death, which occurred in 1915 at Highland Falls, N. Y. Both sisters are buried in the government cemetery at West Point.
Personality
Except in minor respects it is difficult to distinguish Anna's work from that of her sister. Though she was somewhat less talented than Susan, her novels and stories have similar virtues and defects. Temperamentally more stable than Susan, she relied less on sentiment, but her work has the same sort of piety, and the blend of realism and romanticism is much the same.
