At sixteen years of age, she became governess in the family of Charles Paulet, 13th Marquess of Winchester. In 1821 she was engaged to Lawyer and later Upper Canada jurist Robert Jameson. The engagement was broken off, and Anna Murphy accompanied a young pupil to Italy, writing a "autobiographical" narrative under the guise of an unnamed and ailing young woman who eventually dies. She gave this diary to a bookseller on condition of receiving a guitar if he secured any profits. Colburn ultimately published it as The Diary of an Ennuyée (1826), which attracted much attention, not least because the identity of the Writer was soon discovered creating a scandal among reviewers in particular who felt they had been duped. For Anna however, it was the first taste of notoriety. Anna Murphy was governess to the children of Edward Littleton, later created Baron Hatherton, from 1821 to 1825, when she relented and married Jameson.