Anya Seton’s goal for her writing is summed up in a single sentence: “[I want to] make history come alive and [be] as exciting as the past is to me.” She loved history for the sake of history and aimed to represent it as fairly and as interesting as possible. As she reached new heights in her career, she continued to hold herself to the highest standard of historical accuracy. The Greenwich Times wrote of Anya in 1990 that her “books are noted for their factual accuracy and meticulous detail” and that she was “considered one of Greenwich’s leading historians.” The paper’s designation of Anya as a “historian”—not a novelist or romance author—is similar to the writer’s own perception of self. Anya’s devotion to historical truth defined her literary career and personal identity as she navigated critical acclaim, personal challenges, and a lifelong literary passion.
Anya viewed herself as a biographer of sorts, following “ascertainable facts” yet giving the lives of historical figures a “fictional treatment.” Although her novels did contain fictional threads, she prioritized historical details and looked with disdain upon critics who shoved her books into certain genres, namely romance and historical fiction. To Anya, these labels disregarded her scholarly research and reflected gendered assumptions about female writers’ simplistic love stories. When embarking on a new project, Anya chose specific historical figures and researched their lives intensely for months before beginning to write. She typically chose strong historical women who, through a combination of their own doing and societal pressures, fell from an elevated social position to a place of shame. Only after meticulous research and several visits to the settings of her novels would Anya begin drafting and revising.
It would take far too long to give each of Anya’s historical novels the attention they deserve, so instead we will focus on her personal favorite: Katherine. Published in 1954 as her sixth novel, Katherine details the love affair of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. It careens through scenes of murder, war, and love, creating a whirlwind of intrigue and agitation. Yet although Katherine is set in England in the 14th century, it does not always adhere to historical facts perhaps as much as Anya had hoped. Alison Weir asserts in Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster that Anya’s Katherine is informed by 1950s cultural norms that were foreign at the time. For example, Katherine desires true love, yet “true love” as known by Anya did not yet exist; rather, arranged marriages were expected. Consequently, Anya’s version of Katherine Swynford mirrors the writer’s own traits and values. Like Anya, Katherine is clever, beautiful, and sociable. Additionally, Anya’s sympathetic portrayal of Katherine’s adultery reflects her own relaxed approach to marital vows. (Anya’s first divorce was in large part due to several extramarital affairs she held.) Still, Weir admits that Anya “refused to compromise historical accuracy in the interests of telling a good story.”
Despite her intensive research and widespread public admiration—Katherine was her most popular novel yet—Anya, especially as a female author, faced academics’ disapproval. Lucinda MacKethan wrote in Anya Seton: A Writing Life, “Women writers of great popular appeal generally encountered the disdain of highbrow readers and academic arbiters of literary taste.” These supposedly “serious” readers were irritated by Anya’s writing due to an unspecified reason. Just like her mother, who surely had faced gender-based criticism as a female writer of an earlier generation, Anya refused to listen to those critics and focused on honing her craft further.
With the publication of Katherine, Anya’s career skyrocketed. Her personal life, however, was far from perfect. Her first marriage had ended in divorce in 1930, and she had married again only two weeks later to Hamilton M. Chase. In addition to her two children from her previous marriage, she had one daughter with her second husband. Anya was unhappy in this marriage as well; she frequently drank excessively and obsessed over maintaining her weight, both of which prominently factored into her New Year’s resolutions. Her happiest times at home were with her children. Anya’s daughter fondly recalled memories of her mother painstakingly planning holidays and celebrating with her children. She reflected, “I believe she [Anya] was truly happy in two areas of her life—when she was researching and writing her books and when she was creating holiday joy for others, and particularly for her children.” Anya divorced Hamilton in 1968, but she continued to live in Sea Rune, the home they had built in Old Greenwich.
Anya also took part in several hobbies that allowed her to escape her writing and home life from time to time. She loved to play croquet, badminton, and bridge, which also served as a social outlet. As her daughter noted, she was a great cook and took particular interest in trying exotic recipes from a variety of cultures. She also collected costume jewelry and traveled as much as possible, following in her mother’s footsteps. Ever the intellectual, Anya took up studying comparative religion and curated an “extensive library” on the subject. And of course, her “prime hobby, sport, interest and relaxation,” as she called it, was reading. Her favorite authors included Jane Austen, Willa Cather, and Somerset Maugham.
As a trustee of the Greenwich Historical Society, Anya also guaranteed the preservation of Greenwich’s rich history, which she drew heavily upon for The Winthrop Woman. She led fundraising efforts and wrote about the history of the Bush-Holley House, describing it as “beautiful and romantic” and referencing its “mysterious charm.” She ensured that after her death, her personal papers were given to the Greenwich Historical Society, where they can now be found in the Archives.
In total, Anya published twelve novels throughout her three-decade-long career. She died at age 86 in 1990 at Sea Rune, but she left a rich and lasting intellectual legacy. Eighty years after her first novel was published and fifty years after her last, her works continue to be enjoyed worldwide, a testament to her enduring talent and unique creative voice. Most importantly, her meticulous research and writing style blurred the line between historian and novelist, setting a high standard for the literary and scholarly aspects of the historical fiction genre.
