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Specimens Of British Poetesses
''Specimens of British Poetesses; selected and chronologically arranged'' (1825) by Alexander Dyce is an anthology of verse jointly published in London by Thomas Rodd and Septimus Prowett, near the beginning of Dyce's long career as a literary critic, editor, and historian. It was not the first published anthology of poetry by British women writers — that may have been ''Poems by Eminent Ladies'' 2 Vols. (London: R. Baldwin, 1755) — but it was the most comprehensive to date: encompassing 446 pages, it includes 196 poems or excerpts from longer pieces by eighty-nine (89) writers written between approximately 1460 and 1821. In the preface, Dyce highlights some of the issues that continue to concern researchers of women's writing, in particular, identifying them: among the eighty-nine he includes the work of four anonymous authors, and many of the brief biographical notes with which he introduces each writer are sparse or in some cases absent altogether. He writes, "we feel an ho ...
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Alexander Dyce
Alexander Dyce (30 June 1798 – 15 May 1869) was a Scottish dramatic editor and literary historian. He was born in Edinburgh and received his early education at the high school there, before becoming a student at Exeter College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1819. He took holy orders, and became a curate at Lantegloss, in Cornwall, and subsequently at Nayland, in Suffolk; in 1827 he settled in London. His first books were ''Select Translations from Quintus Smyrnaeus'' (1821), an edition of Collins (1827), and ''Specimens of British Poetesses'' (1825). He issued annotated editions of George Peele, Robert Greene, John Webster, Thomas Middleton, Marlowe, and Beaumont and Fletcher, with lives of the authors and much illustrative matter. He completed, in 1833, an edition of James Shirley left unfinished by William Gifford, and contributed biographies of Shakespeare, Pope, Akenside and Beattie to Pickering's ''Aldine Poets''. He also edited (1836–1838) Richard Bentley's wor ...
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Jane Brereton
Jane Brereton (1685–1740) was a Welsh poet who wrote in English. She was notable as a correspondent for ''The Gentleman's Magazine''.Alexander Chalmers (Ed.), ''The General Biographical Dictionary'' - A New Edition volume VI' (1812) Biography Jane was born in 1685, the daughter of Thomas Hughes of Bryn Gruffydd, near Mold, Flintshire, and his wife Anne Jones. Unusually for a girl at the time, Jane was educated at least up to the age of 16, when her father died. She showed an early interest in poetry. In January 1711, she married Thomas Brereton, at the time a commoner of Brasenose College, Oxford. Her husband soon spent his fortune and went over to Paris. Some time after that, a separation took place and she retired in 1721 to Flintshire, where she led a solitary life, seeing little company other than some intimate friends. About that time Thomas Brereton obtained from Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland a post belonging to the customs at Parkgate, Cheshire, but in Februar ...
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Hester Chapone
Hester Chapone ''née'' Mulso (27 October 1727, Twywell, Northamptonshire – 25 December 1801, Hadwell, Middlesex), was an English writer of conduct books for women. She became associated with the London Bluestockings. Life Hester, the daughter of Thomas Mulso (1695–1763), a gentleman farmer, and his wife (died 1747/1748), a daughter of Colonel Thomas, wrote a romance at the age of nine entitled "The Loves of Amoret and Melissa", which earned her mother's disapproval. She was educated more thoroughly than most girls in that period, learning French, Italian and Latin, and began writing regularly and corresponding with other writers at the age of 18. Her earliest published works were four brief pieces for Samuel Johnson's journal ''The Rambler'' in 1750. She was married in 1760 to the solicitor John Chapone (c. 1728–1761), the son of an earlier moral writer, Sarah Chapone (1699–1764), but she was soon widowed. Hester Chapone became associated with the learned ladies or B ...
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Mary Chandler
Mary Chandler (1687–1745) was an English poet. George Crabb writes that she left several poems, "the most esteemed of which was her ''Bath''."Crabb, George (1833)''Universal historical dictionary'' enlarged edition, 2 vols (London: Baldwin and Cradock, and J. Dowding), I, s.v. Life Born at Malmesbury, Wiltshire, she was the eldest daughter of Henry Chandler, a dissenting minister, later at Bath, Somerset. Her mother was a Miss Bridgman of Marlborough, and Samuel Chandler was one of her brothers. In her youth her spine became crooked, and her health suffered, but she set up a milliners shop in Bath about 1705, when not yet out of her teens, and wrote rhyming riddles and poems to friends. Despite her deformity and class station, she was on familiar terms with a variety of Bath society, among them Mrs. Boteler, Mrs. Moor, Lady Russell, and the Duchess of Somerset. Jonathan Swift's friend Mary Barber was her neighbour, and she was also a friend of Elizabeth Rowe and Frances Sey ...
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Anna Chamber
Anne Chamber (married name Anna Grenville-Temple, Countess Temple) (died 7 April 1777) was an English noblewoman and poet. Life Chamber and her elder sister Mary were co-heiresses to their late parents' estate. On 7 May 1737, Chamber married Richard Grenville-Temple, 2nd Earl Temple. In 1742, their only child, Elizabeth, died at age four. The couple reportedly had a large income. Anne's dowry was reportedly £50,000, and Richard was erroneously referred to as the richest man in England. Chamber is known for her poetry, which she took up as an adult. Horace Walpole's company published 100 of her poems in 1764 under the name "Poems" by "Anna Chamber". Chamber died in Stowe in Buckinghamshire in 1777 just after her 40th wedding anniversary. In 1818, the verses she had sent to Lady Charles Spencer were published. References 1709 births Year of birth uncertain 1777 deaths 18th-century British poets British women poets 18th-century British women writers Temple A ...
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Susanna Centlivre
Susanna Centlivre (c. 1669 (baptised) – 1 December 1723), born Susanna Freeman and also known professionally as Susanna Carroll, was an English poet, actress, and "the most successful female playwright of the eighteenth century". Centlivre's "pieces continued to be acted after the theatre managers had forgotten most of her contemporaries." During a long career at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, she became known as the second woman of the English stage, after Aphra Behn. Life The main source of information on Centlivre's early life is Giles Jacob, who claimed he had received an account of it directly from her. This was published in ''The Poetical Register'' of 1719, yet it includes little information about her early life. Centlivre was probably baptised Susanna Freeman at Whaplode, Lincolnshire on 20 November 1669, as the daughter of William Freeman of Holbeach and his wife, Anne, the daughter of Mr Marham, a gentleman of Lynn Regis, Norfolk.J. Milling, "Centlivre , Susanna (b ...
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Anne Cecil
Anne de Vere (née Cecil), Countess of Oxford (5 December 1556 – 5 June 1588) was the daughter of the statesman William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, chief adviser to Queen Elizabeth I of England, and the translator Mildred Cooke. In 1571 she became the first wife of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. She served as a Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth before her marriage. Family and childhood Anne was born 5 December 1556, the elder daughter of William Cecil, later created 1st Baron Burghley, the leading member of Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council, by his second wife, Mildred Cooke, a woman noted for her learning and translations from the Greek. Anne was an intelligent, well-educated child. She is thought to have been tutored by William Lewin. She knew French, Latin and possibly Italian. A letter from the German scholar Johannes Sturm referred to her knowledge of Latin. Her father affectionately called her 'Tannakin'. In 1569, Anne was engaged to marry Sir Philip Sidney. When th ...
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Margaret Cavendish
Margaret Lucas Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1623 – 15 December 1673) was an English philosopher, poet, scientist, fiction writer and playwright. Her husband, William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, was Cavalier, Royalist commander in Northern England during the First English Civil War and in 1644 went into self-imposed exile in Kingdom of France, France. Margaret accompanied him and remained abroad until the Stuart Restoration in 1660. She wrote in her own name in a period when most women writers remained anonymous. Background Born Margaret Lucas to Sir Thomas Lucas (1573–1625) and Elizabeth Leighton (died 1647), she was the youngest child of the family. She had four sisters and three brothers, the royalists John Lucas, 1st Baron Lucas, Sir John Lucas, Thomas Lucas (Royalist), Sir Thomas Lucas and Charles Lucas, Sir Charles Lucas, who owned the manor of St John's Abbey, Colchester. She became an attendant on Queen Henrietta Maria of France, Henri ...
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Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess Of Devonshire
Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (née Spencer; ; 7 June 1757 – 30 March 1806), was an English aristocrat, socialite, political organiser, author, and activist. Born into the Spencer family, married into the Cavendish family, she was the first wife of William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, and the mother of the 6th Duke of Devonshire. As the Duchess of Devonshire, she garnered much attention and fame in society during her lifetime. With a preeminent position in the peerage of England, the Duchess was famous for her charisma, political influence, beauty, unusual marital arrangement, love affairs, socializing, and notorious for her gambling addiction, leading to an immense debt. She was the great-great-great-great aunt of Diana, Princess of Wales. Their lives, centuries apart, have been compared in tragedy. She was also a great-great-great-aunt of Elizabeth II by marriage through the queen's maternal grandmother. Early life and family The Duchess was born Miss G ...
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Elizabeth Carew
Elizabeth Carew (née Bryan; – 1546) was an English courtier and reputed mistress of King Henry VIII. A daughter of Sir Thomas Bryan and Margaret Bourchier, Elizabeth became the wife of Henry VIII's close friend Sir Nicholas Carew, an influential statesman who was eventually executed for his alleged involvement in the Exeter Conspiracy. Her brother, Sir Francis, a member of the Privy Chamber and one of the king's closest friends, was responsible for sitting in the jury that convicted his sister's husband, who was sentenced to death, and thus reduced her to penury. Life She was a first half-cousin of both Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard and a second half-cousin of Jane Seymour, which increased her standing at court. Her only brother was Sir Francis Bryan, called "the Vicar of Hell" for his lack of principles. She is said to have been friends with Bessie Blount, Henry's mistress who produced an illegitimate son in 1519. Her mother, Margaret Bourchier, was a half-sist ...
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The Tragedy Of Mariam
''The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry'' is a Jacobean-era drama written by Elizabeth Cary, Viscountess Falkland, and first published in 1613. There is some speculation that Cary may have written a play before ''The Tragedy of Mariam'' that has since been lost, but most scholars agree that ''The Tragedy of Mariam'' is the first extant original play written by a woman in English. It is also the first known English play to closely explore the history of King Herod's marriage to Mariam. The play was written between 1602 and 1604. It was entered into the Stationers' Register in December 1612. The 1613 quarto was printed by Thomas Creede for the bookseller Richard Hawkins. Cary's drama belongs to the subgenre of the Senecan revenge tragedy, which is made apparent by the presence of the classical style chorus that comments on the plot of the play, the lack of violence onstage, and "long, sententious speeches". The primary sources for the play are ''The Wars of the Jews'' ...
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Elizabeth Cary, Viscountess Falkland
Elizabeth Cary, Viscountess Falkland (''née'' Tanfield; 1585–1639) was an English poet, dramatist, translator, and historian. She is the first woman known to have written and published an original play in English: ''The Tragedy of Mariam''. From an early age, she was recognized by her contemporaries as an accomplished scholar. Biography Early life Elizabeth Tanfield was born in 1585 or 1586 at Burford Priory in Oxfordshire, the only child of Sir Lawrence Tanfield and his wife Elizabeth Symondes of Norfolk. Her father was a lawyer, who eventually became a judge and Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer. Her parents were highly supportive of their daughter's love for reading and learning, which was so great that her mother forbade the servants from giving Elizabeth candles to read by at night. Elizabeth's parents employed a French instructor for her when she was five years old. Five weeks later, she was speaking fluently. After excelling in French, she insisted on learning Spanish ...
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