Beever, Susanna

Biographical Note

Susanna Beever was born November 27, 1805 in the north of England. She lived almost her entire life in the Lake District town of Coniston, in a cottage called the Thwaite. The Beever family became known for being authorities on local botany and, as well, Susanna Beever was interested in poetry, drawing, and painting; in 1870 she published: A Book of Reference to Remarkable Passages in Shakespeare. She met John Ruskin in 1873 and they became close friends, writing each other almost every day about their shared interests in nature, art and a love for animals; and in 1887, Albert Fleming edited and published a selection of these letters. They remained close friends in spite of Ruskin's health problems until Susanna Beever's death, at the age of 88, in Oct. 1893. Close friends in death as they were in life, John Ruskin and Susanna Beever are buried near each other in Coniston, Cumbria, England.