Hannah More was born at Stapleton in Gloucestershire, and educated at her sisters' boarding school in Bristol, where she acquired Italian, Spanish and Latin. Her early literary output was dramatic, consisting of a pastoral play The Search after Happiness (1773), and, after her 1774 move to London, where she became a great friend of Garrick and his wife made the acquaintance of Burke, Walpole, Reynolds and Dr Johnson and wrote the tragedies Percy (1777) and The Fatal Falsehood (1779). After Garrick's death she turned from the stage to social reform, penning Village Politics, Repository Tracks, and in 1809 a popular novel Coelebs in Search of a Wife. She was active in philanthropic causes and a noted letter writer.