Rational Gothic," it manages to tell a Gothic tale – of a boy terrified by a ghostly sign-post – but concludes with a series of moral lessons about the importance of checking for evidence instead of bowing to irrational fears. Ann and Jane Taylor's Rhymes for the Nursery followed in 1806, and Hymns for Infant Minds in 1808. In Original Poems for Infant Minds the authors were identified for each poem, which in Rhymes for the Nursery (1806) they were not. Attributions for their poems can be found in an exceptional resource: The Taylors of Ongar: An Analytical Bio-Bibliography by Christina Duff Stewart. Stewart cites a copy of Rhymes for the Nursery belonging to a nephew, Canon Isaac Taylor, annotated to show the respective authorship of Ann and Jane. Stewart also confirms attributions in Original Poems based on publisher's records. Marriage and widowhood On 24 December 1813, Ann married Joseph Gilbert, an Independent (later Congregational) minister and theologian, and left Ongar for a new home far from her family, at Masborough near Rotherham. A widower of 33, Gilbert had proposed to Ann before he even met her, forming a sound estimate of her character and intelligence from her writings, particularly as a trenchant critic in The Eclectic Review. Gilbert was at the time of their marriage the classics tutor at Rotherham Independent College – the nearest body to a university open to Dissenters at that time – and simultaneously pastor of the Nether Chapel in Sheffield. In 1817, he moved to the pastorate of the Fish Street Chapel in Hull, and then in 1825 to Nottingham, serving in chapels there for the rest of his life. While busy with the duties of wife and later mother, Ann Gilbert managed to write further poems, hymns, essays and letters. Her interest in public matters such as atheism, prison reform and the anti-slavery movement often spurred her, and the results found a way into print. Oddly for one of independence of mind and strongly held, usually liberal opinions, she was firmly opposed to female suffrage. After Gilbert died on 12 December 1852, Ann wrote a memoir of him. Nor did she spend the rest of her long life in retirement. While actively supporting the members of her large family through visits and a stream of letters – family was always of central concern to the Taylors – she travelled widely in Britain, taking