Anna Hanson Dorsey
Born	1815
Died	December 26, 1896(1896-12-26) (aged 80–81) Washington, D.C.
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	American
Genre	Novels, short stories
Notable awards	Laetare Medal
Spouse	Lorenzo Dorsey

Anna Hanson Dorsey (1815 – 26 December 1896) was an American novelist and short story writer. A convert to Catholicism, she was a pioneer of Catholic literature in the United States.

Born Anna Hanson in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., she was the daughter of William McKenney, a chaplain in the U.S. Navy, and Chloe Ann Lanigan McKenney.^[1] In 1837 she married Lorenzo Dorsey, a Baltimore judge.^[2] Their only son died fighting on the Union side in the American Civil War.^[1] Her daughter, Ella Loraine Dorsey, was an author.^[3]

Dorsey converted to Catholicism in 1840 and thereafter devoted herself to Catholic literature, mainly in the form of stories and novels, although she wrote a small amount of poetry as well.^[1] Her more than 40 novels frequently centered on a religious conversion narrative aimed at her largely Protestant audiences, and her New York Times obituary referred to her as a pioneer of Catholic literature in the United States.^[2] Her plots tended towards melodrama, with elements such as mistaken identities, mysterious disappearances, and false accusations.^[2] Her novel Coaina: The Rose of the Algonquins was translated into both German and Hindustani and also made into a stage play.^[1] At least two of her novels — The Student of Blenheim Forest (1847) and The Sister of Charity (1850) — were still in print at the end of the century.^[2]

Pope Leo XIII twice sent her his benediction, and the University of Notre Dame conferred upon her the Laetare Medal.^[4]

She died in Washington, D.C.

• James Emmett Ryan (15 March 2013). Faithful Passages: American Catholicism in Literary Culture, 1844–1931. University of Wisconsin Pres. ISBN 978-0-299-29063-4.

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Anna Hanson Dorsey". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

• Thorp, Willard. "Catholic Novelists in Defense of Their Faith, 1829–1865". Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 78, pt. 1 (1968), pp. 25–117.

• Works by Anna Hanson Dorsey at Project Gutenberg