A member of a family of educators, Aikin wrote, translated, and revised literature for children. Her popularity was strong and enduring; editions of her works appeared on a regular basis until well into the twentieth century. While her contemporaries Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters wrote under pseudonyms, Aikin used her own name for most of her works.
Aikin was born in Warrington, Lancashire, on 6 November 1781 to John Aikin, M.D., and Martha Jennings Aikin, his first cousin. Lucy Aikin's grandfather John Aikin, D.D., had been a tutor in the classics and theology at the Warrington Academy, a Dissenting institution devoted to training young men for the Christian ministry. At the time of his daughter's birth, the younger John Aikin was also a tutor in the classics at Warrington Academy. Joseph Priestley, the scientist and radical theologian, was a friend of the Aikin family, as were other distinguished philosophers, Dissenting theologians, and literary figures.
As the fifth child and only daughter, Lucy was indulged and admired by her father and his colleagues. She was saved from being spoiled, she later acknowledged, by the "good sense, the firmness, the parental affection well understood by my excellent mother," who "taught me what flattery was, and strongly warned me against being led away by it." The contrasting but powerful influences of her father and mother shaped their daughter's theory of education.
This is a free page. This page contains 196 words. This
biography contains 4,184 words (approx. 14 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our Lucy Aikin Access Pass.
