Fanny Blood

Frances "Fanny" Blood (1758 – 29 November 1785) was an English illustrator and educator, and longtime friend of Mary Wollstonecraft. Early life Blood was born in 1758, the daughter of Matthew Blood the Younger (1730–1794) and Caroline Roe ( 1730–1805). Career Blood was paid by the botanist William Curtis to paint wildflowers for his book Flora Londinensis. This created an income for her family. Blood was engaged to Hugh Skeys, a wine merchant of Dublin, but her fiancé had gone to sea to establish money that would finance their marriage. Fanny Blood and her brother, Lieutenant George Blood (1762–1844), were good friends with Mary Wollstonecraft. They met in 1774 after introductions by common friends, the Clares. As Wollstonecraft's husband William Godwin wrote, Wollstonecraft "contracted a friendship so fervent, as for years to have constituted the ruling passion of her mind".