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What did Anna Seward’s will reveal about her financial situation?

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Anna Seward’s will and testament, which spanned approximately 20 pages, revealed that she maintained financial stability throughout her life. Her estate was sufficient to allow her to leave a generous legacy to her friends and family.1

This financial independence was sustained by a combination of her inheritance and her commercial earnings as a writer. Furthermore, her will demonstrated her active management of her intellectual property, as she entrusted the sole copyright of her works to Walter Scott and granted the sole copyright of her letters to the publisher Archibald Constable.12