Anna Hume

Who is Anna Hume?

Anna Hume was a Scottish translator, poet and writer.

Hume was the daughter of Jacobean poet and historian David Hume of Godscroft. She superintended the posthumous publication of her father's History of the House and Race of Douglas and Angus, published The Triumphs of Love, Chastitie, Death: translated out of Petrarch by Mrs. Anna Hume, and is also said to have translated many of her father’s Latin poems.

Controversy surrounded her publication of History of the House and Race of Douglas and Angus, as William Douglas, 11th Earl of Angus, and first marquis of Douglas, was dissatisfied with Hume's work. Douglas consulted Drummond of Hawthornden, who admitted various defects and extravagant views in Hume. Hawthornden, however, did not fight to stop the publication of the work, as be believed that the suppression of the book would ruin the gentlewoman, 'who hath ventured, she says, her whole fortune' on its publication. Drummond of Hawthornden, after observing Anna Hume's commendatory verses, declared himself unworthy of 'the blazon of so pregnant and rare a wit.’