The novel shows her typical thorough research of events and places, though the accents are a little wayward. Billy Pigg, the celebrated Northumbrian piper played 'Derwentwater's Farewell' especially for her. Anya certainly visited her Snowdon cousins at Felton. The action of the novel moves back and forth between Northumberland, Tyneside, London and America.Īnya Seton stated that the book developed out of her love for Northumberland. She also narrates the story of his brother Charles, beheaded after the 1745 rebellion, the last man to die for the cause. Her novel Devil Water concerns James, the luckless Earl of Derwentwater and his involvement with the Jacobite rising of 1715. Most of her novels have been recently republished, several with forewords by Philippa Gregory. Two of her books are classics in their genre and continue in their popularity to the present Katherine, the story of Katherine Swynford, the mistress and eventual wife of John of Gaunt, and their children, who eventually became the basis for the Tudor and Stuart families of England, and Green Darkness, the story of a modern couple plagued by their past life incarnations. Dragonwyck (1941) and Foxfire (1950) were both made into Hollywood films.

Her historical novels were noted for how extensively she researched the historical facts, and some of them were best-sellers. She is interred at Putnam Cemetery in Greenwich. She was the daughter of English-born naturalist and pioneer of the Boy Scouts of America, Ernest Thompson Seton and Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson. Anya Seton (Janu(although the year is often misstated to be 1906 or 1916) - November 8, 1990) was the pen name of the American author of historical romances, Ann Seton.Īnn Seton was born in New York, and died in Old Greenwich, Connecticut.

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