# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Pratt, Anne

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PRATT, ANNE,
This lady is a native of Strood. in the county of Kent, where her father held a respectable position; she was born about the year 1811, and brought up under the sole care of an excellent and pious mother, her other parent having died when she was quite young. From this mother she early imbibed a taste for reading, and from her father appears to have inherited a love for botanical study, which developed itself in early life. She was always passionately fond of flowers, and never so happy as when admiring their beauties, and inquiring into the nature and properties of the plants which bore them; no wonder then that she eventually became a good botanist, and wrote books upon floral subjects which are interesting alike to old and young. Anne Pratt was always an acute, sensible child, with plenty of vivacity and kindliness of disposition; she possessed great influence over her schoolfellows, to whom she was accustomed to deliver play lectures upon such recondite subjects as "The ways of the quakers."
She made an early determination to become an author, and this seemed a kind of preparation for it. We do not, however, And that she very quickly carried this determination into effect. She carefully studied the rules of grammar, and the art of composition; but as her knowledge increased, she began to entertain doubts of her capabilities, and it was not until she attained quite a mature age that her first book appeared; this was a pretty little square volume, issued in 1841, by Charles Knight, who was then doing 80 much to popularize good sound literature by his "Penny Magazine" and other publications. This volume was quickly followed by another of a similar character, entitled "Flowers and their Associations;" and after that, at no long intervals, came two or three little books, written, like the above, especially for the instruction of the young; and all excellent alike in their moral tone, and simplicity of style.
In 1855, Miss Pratt was requested by the Religious Tract Society to write some of their monthly volumes, and she produced for this series "Wild Flowers of the Year," "Garden Flowers of the Year," and "Scripture Plants." These books have had a very large sale, the first of them something like forty thousand; it was written while the author was in deep affliction on account of the death of her mother, from whom she had never before been long separated, and to whom she was devotedly attached. This employment of her mind was salutary at such a time, and thenceforward she entered with greater ardour than ever into literary pursuits, producing the little books above named, and others to be presently enumerated, in rapid succession. It should be mentioned that she bad, about the year 1852, written for the Tract Society a small ​work entitled "Green Fields and their Grasses," and a year or two after, had famished the text for a beautifully-illustrated present-book, called "The Excellent Woman," founded on Solomon's definition of such a character.
Miss Pratt's most important works, have been composed for the Christian Knowledge Society, her connection commenced in 1851, when she undertook to write a work on "Common Things of the Sea-Coast," which is one of the most popular books on the subject extant. This was followed by "Our Native Wild Flowers," in two handsome square volumes, profusely illustrated from drawings by the author, who is most skilful in the delineation of botanical subjects. Then followed another work, uniform in size and style, called "Our Song Birds;" and the success of these books, whose illustrations were in a new style of colour-printing, induced the Society to determine on the issue of a large work on "The Flowering Plants and Ferns of Britain," which this clever and indefatigable author undertook, and has only recently completed. It is in several volumes, and presents the results of the better part of an industrious life devoted to a close and loving study of the growth and properties of British plants; it is in its character at once scientific and popular, and must take its place as a standard authority. Miss Pratt is, we understand, now engaged in a smaller work on "Poisonous and Deleterious Plants," which cannot be other than a useful contribution to popular economic botanical literature. By all this it will be seen that this author well deserves a place in our catalogue of remarkable women. Her works have gone through the length and breadth of her native land, and linked more closely to nature the hearts of their numerous readers, whether old or young. Her intense love of the beautiful in nature, her reverence for all the works of the Almighty Creator, are visible in everything she has written; and her kindly and affectionate spirit has so infused itself through her teachings, that she is more like a companion than a teacher, even to the most youthful. Of late. Miss Pratt has resided chiefly at Dover, for the benefit of the fresh bracing air, her health being delicate. She is one of the pleasantest of companions and warmest of friends; and is still as eager a student in the great school of nature as she was in her young days. Many good poems are scattered through her various works, but she does not pride herself upon her rhyming faculty.