Helen Maria Williams (1761 or 1762 – 15 December 1827) was a British novelist, poet, and translator of French-language works. A religious dissenter, she was a supporter of abolitionism and of the ideals of the French Revolution; she was imprisoned in Paris during the Reign of Terror, but nonetheless spent much of the rest of her life in France.
A controversial figure in her own time, the young Williams was favorably portrayed in a 1787 poem by William Wordsworth, but (especially at the height of the French Revolution) she was portrayed by other writers as irresponsibly politically radical and even as sexually wanton.
Famous quotes containing the words helen, maria and/or williams:
“Excuse me while I slip into something more comfortable.”
—H. Behn, screenwriter, H. Eastabrook, screenwriter, and J.M. March, screenwriter. Howard Hughes, J. Whale, M. Nielan, and L. Reed. Helen (Jean Harlow)
“It were a blessed sight to see
That child become a willow tree,
His brother trees among.
He’d be four times as tall as me,
And live three times as long.”
—Catherine Maria Fanshawe (1765–1834)
“Time rushes toward us with its hospital tray of infinitely varied narcotics, even while it is preparing us for its inevitably fatal operation.”
—Tennessee Williams (1914–1983)