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Mary Meeke
Elizabeth Meeke (13 November 1761 – c. October 1826) was a prolific English author, translator and children's writer, and the stepsister of Frances Burney. She wrote about 30 novels, published by the Minerva Press in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Identity The novels appeared mainly under the name Mrs. Meeke, sometimes under the pseudonym Gabrielli, and a few anonymously. Their author was once assumed to be Mary Meeke, the wife of a Staffordshire vicar, but "Mrs. Meeke" was conclusively identified as Elizabeth Meeke in an article by Simon Macdonald in 2013. She is thought to have died in about October 1826. Fiction Meeke's debut novel was ''Count St Blanchard'' in 1795. Others include ''The Abbey of Clugny'', ''The Mysterious Wife'', ''Anecdotes of the Altamont Family'' and ''Which is the Man?'' Her works include several translations from French, such as ''Elizabeth, or the Exiles of Siberia''. The third edition of Chamber's ''Cyclopaedia of English Literature'' in 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frances Burney
Frances Burney (13 June 1752 – 6 January 1840), also known as Fanny Burney and later Madame d'Arblay, was an English satirical novelist, diarist and playwright. In 1786–1790 she held the post as "Keeper of the Robes" to Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, George III's queen. In 1793, aged 41, she married a French exile, General Alexandre d'Arblay. After a long writing career and wartime travels that stranded her in France for over a decade, she settled in Bath, England, where she died on 6 January 1840. The first of her four novels, ''Evelina'' (1778), was the most successful and remains her most highly regarded. Most of her plays were not performed in her lifetime. She wrote a memoir of her father (1832) and many letters and journals that have been gradually published since 1889. Overview of career Frances Burney was a novelist, diarist and playwright. In all, she wrote four novels, eight plays, one biography and twenty-five volumes of journals and letters. She has gained c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minerva Press
Minerva Press was a publishing house, noted for creating a lucrative market in sentimental and Gothic fiction in the late 18th century and early 19th century. It was established by William Lane (c. 1745–1814) at No 33 Leadenhall Street, London, when he moved his circulating library there in about 1790. Publications The Minerva Press was hugely successful in its heyday, though it had a reputation for sensationalism among readers and critics, and for sharp business practices among some of its competitors. Many of Lane's regular writers were women, including Regina Maria Roche (''The Maid of Hamlet'', 1793; '' Clermont'', 1798); Eliza Parsons (''The Castle of Wolfenbach'', 1793; '' The Mysterious Warning'', 1796); E. M. Foster; and Eleanor Sleath (''The Orphan of the Rhine'', 1798) whose Gothic fiction is included in the list of seven " horrid novels" recommended by the character Isabella Thorpe in Jane Austen's ''Northanger Abbey''. Six of the ''Northanger'' Seven were publis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
François Guillaume Ducray-Duminil
François Guillaume Ducray-Duminil (1761, Paris - 29 October 1819, Ville-d'Avray) was a French novelist, poet and songwriter. Career Born in Paris, from 1790 onward, Ducray-Duminil was the literary editor of ''Les Petites Affiches'' where he was known for the great forbearance of his reviews. A member of several literary societies, most notably of the ''Société du Caveau'', he wrote poetry and lyrics as well as a few plays that were never produced. He is best known as a writer for children and young adults, a genre in which he became extremely popular. Worried about the moral message of his works, he saw to it that virtue and innocence should prevail after a series of ingenious twists in the plot. In ''Les Misérables'' Victor Hugo refers to his works as "stupid romances" which the favourite reading of Thénardiers, Madame Thénardier. Critics ridiculed his style and syntax, but he mainly aimed at clarity, an essential quality considering the type of audience he was addres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
August Lafontaine
August Heinrich Julius Lafontaine (5 October 1758 – 20 April 1831) was a German novelist. Biography Lafontaine was born and brought up in Brunswick, the son of the court painter Ludolph Lafontaine and his fifth wife, the court maid-in-waiting Sophie Elisabeth Thorbrügge. He was educated in Helmstedt, where he studied theology, but took no degree.Dirk SangmeisterDer Lieblingsdichter der Nation... article in German newspaper ''Die Zeit'' no. 31, 1999. He then acted as a private tutor until 1789. In 1792, he served as a field chaplain in the Prussian army, and in 1800 settled in Halle. He became canon of the Magdeburg Cathedral as a reward for the dedication of one of his books to Friedrich Wilhelm III and Luise. Works The popularity of his novels, which are sentimental and didactic tales of domestic life, was remarkable. In his lifetime, he was the most popular German novelist, his works surpassing by far the popularity of his contemporary Goethe's. He wrote over 150 volumes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marie Anne De Vichy-Chamrond, Marquise Du Deffand
Marie Anne de Vichy-Chamrond, marquise du Deffand (25 September 1696 – 23 September 1780) was a French hostess and patron of the arts. Life Madame du Deffand was born at the Château de Chamrond, in Ligny-en-Brionnais, a village near Charolles (''département'' of Saône-et-Loire) of a noble family. Educated at a Benedictine convent in Paris, she showed great intelligence and a skeptical, cynical turn of mind. The abbess of the convent, alarmed at the freedom of her views, arranged for Jean Baptiste Massillon to visit and reason with her, but he accomplished nothing. At twenty-one years of age and without consulting her, her parents married her to her kinsman, Jean Baptiste de la Lande, marquis du Deffand. The marriage was an unhappy one and the couple separated in 1722. Madame du Deffand is said by Horace Walpole (in a letter to Thomas Gray) to have been for a short time the mistress of the regent, the duke of Orléans. She appeared in her earlier days to be incapable of any ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (; 2 July 1724 – 14 March 1803) was a German poet. His best known work is the epic poem ''Der Messias'' ("The Messiah"). One of his major contributions to German literature was to open it up to exploration outside of French models. Biography Early life Klopstock was born at Quedlinburg, the eldest son of a lawyer. Both in his birthplace and on the estate of Friedeburg on the Saale, which his father later rented, he spent a happy childhood. Having been given more attention to his physical than to his mental development, he grew up strong and healthy and was considered an excellent horseman. In his thirteenth year, he returned to Quedlinburg and attended the gymnasium there, and in 1739 went on to the famous classical school named Schulpforta. Here he soon became adept in Greek and Latin versification, and wrote some meritorious idylls and odes in German. His original intention of making Henry the Fowler the hero of an epic was abandoned in favor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Collyer
Mary Collyer (née Mitchell) (c. 1716 – 1763) was an English translator and novelist. Life Mary, whose maiden name was Mitchell, married Joseph Collyer the elder; their son, Joseph Collyer the younger, was an engraver, and illustrated one edition of his mother's translation ''Death of Abel''. Works She is principally known as the translator of Salomon Gessner's 'Death of Abel' (1761). This work passed through numerous editions in England, Scotland, and Ireland. It became an immediate and enduring bestseller on a par with Pilgrim's Progress and Robinson Crusoe. There were 40 editions and reprints between 1762 and 1800 and reached a total of 70 editions and reprints through 1830 in Britain and North America. The readers of Gessner's version of the biblical story belonged to a poorer and less educated public. While sophisticated readers on the Continent found delight in the Arcadian pantheism of the idyll, the poorer masses of England and North America were attracted to the epi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sophie Ristaud Cottin
Sophie Cottin (22 March 1770 – 25 August 1807) was a French writer whose novels were popular in the 19th century, and were translated into several different languages. Biography Marie Sophie Ristaud (sometimes spelt Risteau) was born in March 1770 at Tonneins. She was not yet twenty when she married her first husband, Jean-Paul-Marie Cottin, a banker. She wrote several romantic and historical novels including ''Elizabeth; or, the Exiles of Siberia'' (''Elisabeth ou les Exilés de Sibérie'' 1806), a "wildly romantic but irreproachably moral tale", according to Nuttall's Encyclopaedia. She also published ''Claire d'Albe'' (1799), ''Malvina'' (1801), ''Amélie de Mansfield'' (1803), ''Mathilde'' (1805), set in the crusades, and a prose-poem, ''La Prise de Jéricho''. Her writing became more important to her after her first husband died when she was in her early twenties. She went to live with a cousin and her three children at Champlan (Seine-et-Oise) but died at the age of 37 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sheffield Hallam University
Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) is a public research university in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The university is based on two sites; the City Campus is located in the city centre near Sheffield railway station, while the Collegiate Crescent Campus is about two miles away in the Broomhall Estate off Ecclesall Road in south-west Sheffield. The university is the largest university in the UK (out of ) with students (of whom 4,400 are international students), 4,494 staff and 708 courses. History Foundation and growth In 1843, as the industrial revolution gathered pace and Sheffield was on the verge of becoming the steel, tool and cutlery making capital of the world, the Sheffield School of Design was founded following lobbying by artist Benjamin Haydon. The day-to-day running was controlled by the local council, whilst the Board of Trade in London appointed the head. Tuition began in a 60x40ft rented room off Glossop Road. In 1850, the School of Design was renamed Sheff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fürstliche Bibliothek Corvey
The Fürstliche Bibliothek Corvey (English: Corvey Library) is a princely library in the Princely Abbey of Corvey, a former Benedictine abbey, near Höxter in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It consists of around 74,000 volumes and is one of the largest and most valuable private libraries in Germany. The library houses one of the world's largest collections of Romantic literature (and especially strong in the period after 1815) and the largest collection in the world of "popular fiction in English between 1798 and 1834". Stephen C. Behrendt, the George Holmes Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, has praised the Corvey's "vast archive" of "uncommon, scarce, and even unique materials" which will assist scholars researching "British Romantic and early Victorian literary culture". History Victor Amadeus, Landgraf of Hesse-Rotenburg (1779–1834), who was the Prince of Corvey from 1815 and Duke of Ratibor from 1821, and his wife Elisabeth ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1761 Births
Events January–March * January 14 – Third Battle of Panipat: Ahmad Shah Durrani and his coalition decisively defeat the Maratha Confederacy, and restore the Mughal Empire to Shah Alam II. * January 16 – Siege of Pondicherry (1760) ended: The British capture Pondichéry, India from the French. * February 8 – An earthquake in London breaks chimneys in Limehouse and Poplar. * March 8 – A second earthquake occurs in North London, Hampstead and Highgate. * March 31 – 1761 Portugal earthquake: A magnitude 8.5 earthquake strikes Lisbon, Portugal, with effects felt as far north as Scotland. April–June * April 1 – The Austrian Empire and the Russian Empire sign a new treaty of alliance. * April 4 – A severe epidemic of influenza breaks out in London and "practically the entire population of the city" is afflicted; particularly contagious to pregnant women, the disease causes an unusual number of miscarriages and prema ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
