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Poems By Eminent Ladies
''Poems by Eminent Ladies'' (1755) is one of the first anthologies of women's writing in English. It was edited by George Colman (1732–1794) and Bonnell Thornton (1725–1768). The first edition The first edition comprises works by eighteen poets born between 1623 and 1722. Roughly half the pieces were written in the late seventeenth century, and the rest in the first half of the eighteenth. The poems are arranged alphabetically by author, an innovative format, for while both collections and collective biographies were popular, "the conflation of verse miscellany and encyclopedia or memoir was almost unheard of". Chantal Lavoie has described this anthology as "the first attempt to determine and justify a canon of women's writings". and notes that Colman and Thornton were friends to John Duncombe, author of '' The Feminiad'' (1754), a poetic celebration of women writers. The second edition Colman, as surviving partner, published a considerably expanded edition in 1785, in parti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Colman The Elder
George Colman (April 1732 – 14 August 1794) was an English dramatist and essayist, usually called "the Elder", and sometimes "George the First", to distinguish him from his son, George Colman the Younger. He also owned a theatre. Early life He was born in Florence, where his father was stationed as British Resident Minister (diplomatic envoy) at the court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Colman's father died within a year of his son's birth and William Pulteney- afterwards Lord Bath- whose wife was Mrs. Colman's sister, undertook to educate the boy. After he received private education in Marylebone, George attended Westminster School. Colman left school in due course for Christ Church, Oxford. There he made the acquaintance of the parodist Bonnell Thornton, with whom he co-founded '' The Connoisseur'' (1754–1756), a periodical which "wanted weight," as Johnson said, although it reached its 140th number. He left Oxford after taking his degree in 1755 and, having been entered a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anne Finch, Countess Of Winchilsea
Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (''née'' Kingsmill; April 16615 August 1720), was an English poet and courtier. Finch's works often express a desire for respect as a female poet, lamenting her difficult position as a woman in the literary establishment and the court, while writing of "political ideology, religious orientation, and aesthetic sensibility". Her works also allude to other female authors of the time, such as Aphra Behn and Katherine Phillips. Through her commentary on the mental and spiritual equality of the genders and the importance of women fulfilling their potential as a moral duty to themselves and to society, she is regarded as one of the integral female poets of the Restoration Era. Finch died in Westminster in 1720 and was buried at her home at Eastwell, Kent. Biography Early years Finch was born Anne Kingsmill in April 1661 in Sydmonton, Hampshire, in southern England. Her parents were Sir William Kingsmill and Anne Haslewood, both from old and po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frances Brooke
Frances Brooke ( Moore; 12 January 1724 – 23 January 1789) was an English novelist, essayist, playwright and translator. Hers was the first English novel known to have been written in Canada. Biography Frances Moore was born in Claypole, Lincolnshire, England, the daughter of a clergyman. She was only three years old when her father died. Her mother's death followed soon after. By the late 1740s, she had moved to London, where she embarked on her career as a poet and playwright. She did not drew attention until she published her essay serial ''The Old Maid''. Under the pseudonym of Mary Singleton, Spinster, she edited 37 issues of this weekly periodical (1755–1756), which was patterned after ''The Spectator''. In 1756 she married Rev. Dr John Brooke, rector at Colney, Norfolk. The following year he left for Canada as a military chaplain while his wife remained in England. In 1763 she wrote her first novel, ''The History of Lady Julia Mandeville''. In the same year Brooke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Anna Laetitia Barbauld (, by herself possibly , as in French, Aikin; 20 June 1743 – 9 March 1825) was a prominent English poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, and author of children's literature. A " woman of letters" who published in multiple genres, Barbauld had a successful writing career that spanned more than half a century. She was a noted teacher at the Palgrave Academy and an innovative writer of works for children. Her primers provided a model for more than a century. Her essays showed it was possible for a woman to be engaged in the public sphere; other women authors such as Elizabeth Benger emulated her. Barbauld's literary career spanned numerous periods in British literary history: her work promoted the values of the enlightenment and of sensibility, while her poetry made a founding contribution to the development of British Romanticism. Barbauld was also a literary critic. Her anthology of 18th-century novels helped to establish the canon as it is known to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elizabeth Singer Rowe
Elizabeth Singer Rowe (née Singer, 1674–1737) was an English poet, essayist and fiction writer called "the ornament of her sex and age" and the "Heavenly Singer". She was among 18th-century England's most widely read authors. She wrote mainly religious poetry, but her best-known work, ''Friendship in Death'' (1728), is a series of imaginary letters from the dead to the living. Despite a posthumous reputation as a pious, bereaved recluse, Rowe corresponded widely and was involved in local concerns at Frome in her native Somerset. She remained popular into the 19th century on both sides of the Atlantic and in translation. Though little read today, scholars have called her stylistically and thematically radical for her time. Biography Born on 11 September 1674 at Ilchester, Somerset, she was the eldest daughter of Elizabeth Portnell and Walter Singer, a dissenting minister.Pritchard, John. ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.''Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004. Her parents met wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Letitia Pilkington
Laetitia Pilkington (born Laetitia van Lewen; ''c.'' 1709 – 29 July 1750) was an Anglo-Irish poet. She is known for her ''Memoirs'' which document much of what is known about Jonathan Swift. Life Early years Laetitia was born of two distinguished families: Her father was a physician, obstetrician, and eventually the president of the College of Physicians for Ireland, while her mother was the niece of Sir John Meade. She was born either in Cork, where her parents lived at their marriage, or Dublin, where they moved by 1711. Marriage In her teenage years she married Matthew Pilkington in 1725, a priest in the Church of Ireland, who bought to the marriage all of his worldly possessions, a harpsichord, a cat, and an owl. The couple were introduced to Jonathan Swift at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, in 1725. Swift assisted the Pilkingtons, and helped Matthew attain a position as chaplain to the Lord Mayor of London for 1732–1733. The assignment to London was a tur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Katherine Philips
Katherine or Catherine Philips (1 January 1631/2 – 22 June 1664), also known as "The Matchless Orinda", was an Anglo-Welsh royalist poet, translator, and woman of letters. She achieved renown as a translator of Pierre Corneille's '' Pompée'' and ''Horace'', and for her editions of poetry after her death. She was highly regarded by many notable later writers, including John Dryden and John Keats, as being influential. Early years Born in London, Katherine Philips was daughter of John Fowler, a Presbyterian cloth merchant of Bucklersbury, near the river in the City of London, and of Katherine Oxenbridge, whose father worked in the medical profession. Philips, it seems, had a strong memory and was intellectually advanced, and was, according to a cousin of hers, able to read the Bible before the age of four. Additionally, she acquired remarkable fluency in several languages. After her father's death, she moved to Wales with her newly married mother. She attended boarding s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Wortley Montague
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (née Pierrepont; 15 May 168921 August 1762) was an English aristocrat, writer, and poet. Born in 1689, Lady Mary spent her early life in England. In 1712, Lady Mary married Edward Wortley Montagu, who later served as the British ambassador to the Sublime Porte. Lady Mary joined her husband in the Ottoman excursion, where she was to spend the next two years of her life. During her time there, Lady Mary wrote extensively on her experience as a woman in Ottoman Istanbul. After her return to England, Lady Mary devoted her attention to the upbringing of her family before dying of cancer in 1762. Lady Mary is today chiefly remembered for her letters, particularly her ''Turkish Embassy Letters'' describing her travels to the Ottoman Empire, as wife to the British ambassador to Turkey, which Billie Melman describes as "the very first example of a secular work by a woman about the Muslim Orient".Melman, Billie. ''Women's Orients: English Women and the Mid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Monck
Mary Monck (; 1677?1715) was a celebrated beauty and poet. Digital version at Library Ireland. Life She was the second daughter of Robert Molesworth, 1st Viscount Molesworth, and Letitia Coote, third daughter of Richard, Lord Coloony, and sister of Richard, Earl of Bellamont. She became the first wife of George Monck of St Stephen's Green, Dublin, and died at Bath in 1715. They had two daughters (the eldest, Sarah Monck, died in 1739) and one son, Henry Stanley Monck of St Stephen's Green, who died in 1745. Works By her own application she acquired a knowledge of the Latin, Italian, and Spanish languages, and read much English literature. Some poems by her appeared shortly after her death under the title of ''Marinda. Poems and Translations upon several occasions,'' London, 1716, 8vo. On her deathbed she wrote some very affecting verses to her husband, which are not included in her works, but which were printed in Barber's collection Collection or Collections may refer to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Masters
Mary Masters (1694?-1759?) was an English poet and letter-writer of the 18th century, who has gained some historic attention because of her association with Samuel Johnson. Contemporary evaluations stress her contribution to the evolving model of women in society, both by her publishing her work, and by the themes and opinions in that work. Biography Mary Masters, thought to have been born in 1694 in Otley, West Yorkshire was — by her own insistence – a self-taught poet of humble birth: the preface to her first collection reads: The Author of the following Poems never read a Treatise of Rhetorick, or an Art of Poetry, nor was ever taught her English Grammar. Her Education rose no higher than the Spelling-Book, or the Writing-Master: her Genius to Poetry was always brow-beat and discountenanced by her Parents, and till her Merit got the better of her Fortune, she was shut out from all Commerce with the more knowing and polite Part of the World. Despite this, she seems to have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Judith Madan
Judith Madan (; 26 August 1702 – 7 December 1781) was an English poet. She was the granddaughter of the diarist, Sarah, Lady Cowper (1644–1720) and aunt of the poet William Cowper. She was a correspondent, admirer and protégé of Alexander Pope prior to her marriage, and she composed an admired early-gothic work, ''Abelard to Eloisa'', as a response to Pope's ''Eloisa to Abelard''. Life and career She was the only daughter of Spencer Cowper, lawyer, judge (Justice of the Common Pleas), and member of Parliament, and his wife Pennington (; died 1727), and is thought to have been born at the family seat, Hertingfordbury Park, Hertfordshire, England. She began writing poetry as a teenager. While still Judith Cowper she met Alexander Pope sometime after the 1717 publication of his ''Eloisa to Abelard''. She wrote ''Abelard to Eloisa'', a prominent example of the many literary responses to Pope's work, before she was 20. It was the first English adaptation of the story to fe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Leapor
Mary Leapor (1722–1746) was an English poet, born in Marston St. Lawrence, Northamptonshire, the only child of Anne Sharman (died 1741) and Philip Leapor (1693–1771), a gardener. She, out of the many labouring-class writers of the period, was noticeably well received. Biography Partly self-educated, she probably received a rudimentary education at either a local dame school, or at the local free school in Brackley on the south side of the Chapel. According to her father she began writing "tolerably" at the age of 10. Her father recollected, "She would often be scribbling, and sometimes in Rhyme," but that her mother ended up discouraging the writing, requesting she find some "more profitable employment". She was fortunate enough to attain a position as kitchen maid with Susanna Jennens ("Parthenissa" in Leapor's poetry), who apparently encouraged her writing and allowed her the use of her library. Jennens wrote poetry herself and had connections to both Mary Astell and Mary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
