Background
Born at the rectory in Bilton, now called Bilton-in-Ainsty, Yorkshire, Annie was the daughter of a former army chaplain, William Keary, who came from County Galway in Ireland, and his wife, Lucy Plumer, of Bilton Hall. Her father later became incumbent of Sculcoates, near Hull, and simultaneously of Nunnington in North Yorkshire, where the family moved. Then, when Annie was twenty, came another move to Clifton near Bristol, due to her father"s declining health.
Their relationship was close, and her father gave her much of the information about Ireland that she would later incorporate into her novels.
Education
She was educated at home.
Career
She suffered from poor health and slight deafness. Keary moved in 1848 to keep house for a widowed brother in Staffordshire, who had three children. Soon after, she lost two other beloved brothers, and a long engagement was broken official
Annie"s sister Eliza (see section below) wrote a memoir of Annie after her death in Eastbourne in 1879.
The memoir relates how Eliza accompanied the frail Annie to Egypt and to Cannes to do research for her books The sisters also helped to run a home for unemployed servant girls in Pimlico.
They were befriended by the novelist Charles Kingsley and his family. The dominant considerations in her life were family ties.
She nursed her mother in her last illness in 1869 and later looked after four young cousins whose parents were in India.
Apart from her collaborations with Annie Keary and her memoir of her, Eliza wrote poetry, which was published at the time, and has received some recent attention from feminist scholars. She died in Torquay in 1918.
