Mary Latter, a mid-eighteenth-century woman living in the provinces, made no secret of writing for money. She is obsessive and wordy in style, interesting mainly for her dogged and persistent struggle to succeed. Her characteristic indignation springs partly from the influence of the Augustan satirists, partly from circumstances of her own life. She wrote and published in many genres: tragedy, translation and adaptation (now lost), satirical dialogue, essays and letters (both personal, critical, and political), and spoofs of all kinds, often burlesquing the very style she is writing. Though she mentions discrimination against her as a woman, she inclines towards anti-feminism herself.
Milestones
17 November 1740 The young ML placed "a ludicrous advertisement, in verse" in the
Reading Mercury (owned by the
London publisher
John Newbery) to deny that she was the author of lampoons on the "persons and characters" of local ladies.
By January 1764 ML published anonymously, at
Reading and
London,
Liberty and Interest. A Burlesque Poem on the Present Times.
By September 1771 ML issued with her name, at
Reading and
London,
Pro & Con; or, The Opinionists: An Ancient Fragment. Published for the Amusement of the Curious in Antiquity.
