Events Timeline

Orlando includes short event entries, freestanding and embedded in author profiles, about moments and processes relevant to literary history and organized into four categories: Women writers, Writing Climate, Political Climate, and Social Climate. Explore the timelines by searching for date(s) and/or words or phrases associated with them.

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18 March 1709: At the trial of three men accused of murdering...

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18 March 1709

At the trial of three men accused of murdering a constable who had tried to arrest a prostitute, the Lord Chief Justice asserted, a light Woman hath a right of Liberty as well as another...

7 April 1709: On a benefit night for the septagenarian...

Building item

7 April 1709

On a benefit night for the septagenarian actor Thomas Betterton , he acted a role he had created, the young hero of Congreve 's Love for Love; Elizabeth Barry and Anne Bracegirdle emerged from...

12 April 1709: Richard Steele began issuing his ground-breaking...

Writing climate item

12 April 1709

Richard Steele began issuing his ground-breaking periodical The Tatler, using the pseudonym Isaac Bickerstaff and declaring his intention of reporting topics of talk from all the London coffeehouses.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2026, 22 vols. plus supplements.

30 April 1709: The ninth number of The Tatler carried Jonathan...

Writing climate item

30 April 1709

The ninth number of The Tatler carried Jonathan Swift 's A Description of the Morning: a mock pastoral poem with prentice boys and maidservants for shepherds and shepherdesses.
Steele, Sir Richard, editor. The Tatler. Printed for the author, 1-272.
9: 1
Swift, Jonathan. Poems. Editor Williams, Harold, Clarendon, 1958.
86, 91

30 April 1709: A proclamation against gambling and acting...

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30 April 1709

A proclamation against gambling and acting at the traditional, popular, rowdy May Fair (held annually north of Piccadilly in London) caused the event to collapse and the custom to wither.
Rogers, Pat. “The Maypole in the Strand”. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
28
, No. 1, 1 Mar.–31 May 2005, pp. 83-95.
84-5

2 May 1709: Poetical Miscellanies. The Sixth Part was...

Writing climate item

2 May 1709

Poetical Miscellanies. The Sixth Part was published, including Pope 's Pastorals and poems by Anne Finch (which are placed between work by Pope and Swift ).
Pope, Alexander. The Poems of Alexander Pope. Editor Butt, John, Twickenham Edition, Methuen; Yale University Press, 1951–1969, 11 vols.
1: 58

Anne Finch: May-October 1709

Women writers item
Author event in Anne Finch

May-October 1709

AF appeared several times in print, with poems in both volumes of Delarivier Manley 's New Atalantis and in Poetical Miscellanies published by Jacob Tonson .
McGovern, Barbara. Anne Finch and Her Poetry: A Critical Biography. University of Georgia Press, 1992.
120-1, 93

Susanna Centlivre: 12 May 1709

Women writers item
Author event in Susanna Centlivre

12 May 1709

SC achieved her most enduring hit when her next comedy, The Busie Body, opened.
Bowyer, John Wilson. The Celebrated Mrs Centlivre. Duke University Press, 1952.
94

Mary Pix: By 19 May 1709

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Pix

By 19 May 1709

MP had died; this was the day of her funeral.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Mary Astell: 26 May 1709

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Astell

26 May 1709

MA 's last book was advertised: Bart'lemy Fair: Or, An Enquiry after Wit, published this year.
Norton, J. E. “Some Uncollected Authors, XXVII: Mary Astell, 1666-1731”. The Book Collector, Vol.
10
, 1961, pp. 58-65.
65

Delarivier Manley: 26 May-October 1709

Women writers item
Author event in Delarivier Manley

26 May-October 1709

DM published anonymously, in two successive volumes, her secret history or political scandal fiction Secret Memoirs from the New Atalantis.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2026, 22 vols. plus supplements.
Feminist Companion Archive.

Mary Pix: By 28 May 1709

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Pix

By 28 May 1709

Just over a week after MP died, a performance of Susanna Centlivre 's The Busie Body was given for the benefit of her executor (indirectly, therefore, for her family).
Lyons, Paddy, and Fidelis Morgan, editors. Female Playwrights of the Restoration: Five Comedies. J. M. Dent, 1991.
xviii

6 June 1709: Drury Lane Theatre (under Christopher Rich)...

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6 June 1709

Drury Lane Theatre (under Christopher Rich ) was closed by the Lord Chamberlain for deducting too much in house charges from the full receipts.
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960–1968, 5 vols.
2: 175

Mary Astell: 9 June 1709

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Astell

9 June 1709

MA set up a charity school for girls in Chelsea.
Perry, Ruth. The Celebrated Mary Astell: An Early English Feminist. University of Chicago Press, 1986.
238

Mary Astell: 23 June 1709

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Astell

23 June 1709

MA was attacked in Tatler number 32, ostensibly for A Serious Proposal, by either Swift or Steele .
Steele, Sir Richard, and Donald F. Bond, editors. The Tatler. Vol. 3 vols., Clarendon Press, 1987.
1:238-41
Perry, Ruth. The Celebrated Mary Astell: An Early English Feminist. University of Chicago Press, 1986.
228-9

8 July 1709-31 March 1710: The thrice-weekly Female Tatler appeared,...

Women writers item

8 July 1709-31 March 1710

The thrice-weekly Female Tatler appeared, an explicitly woman-centred riposte to the condescending or gender-prejudiced element in Richard Steele 's still-new Tatler.
The Female Tatler. Sold by B. Bragge, 1-111.
Prescott, Sarah, and Jane Spencer. “Prattling, tattling and knowing everything: public authority and the female editorial persona in the early essay-periodical”. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
23
, No. 1, 1 Mar.–31 May 2000, pp. 43-57.
44, 45 and n7, 48-9
Mandeville, Bernard. “Introduction”. By a Society of Ladies: Essays in The Female Tatler, edited by Maurice Marks Goldsmith, University of Durham; Thoemmes, 1999.

Susanna Hopton : 12 July 1709

Women writers item
Author event in Susanna Hopton

12 July 1709

SH died at her house in Hereford at about two in the afternoon, of a very sharp Feavour.
qtd. in
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Bathsheba Bowers: 17 July 1709

Writing climate item
Author event in Bathsheba Bowers

17 July 1709

BB signed her pamphlet An Alarm Sounded to prepare the Inhabitants of the World to meet the Lord in the way of his Judgements, which she published in New York (well away from her...

30 August 1709: The Tatler asserted that women were obsessed...

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30 August 1709

The Tatler asserted that women were obsessed with their own beauty: this great evil proceeded from an unaccountable wild Method in the Education of the better half of the World, the Women.
Steele, Sir Richard, editor. The Tatler. Printed for the author, 1-272.
61

Delarivier Manley: 3 September 1709

Women writers item
Author event in Delarivier Manley

3 September 1709

Between the first and second volumes of the New Atalantis, Steele attacked DM in Tatler no. 63 (not for the first time) as dispensing poison with her tongue.
McDowell, Paula. The Women of Grub Street: Press, Politics, and Gender in the London Literary Marketplace, 1678-1730. Clarendon, 1998.
279

Samuel Johnson: 7 September 1709

Writing climate item
Author event in Samuel Johnson

7 September 1709

SJ , man of letters, was born above his father's bookshop at Lichfield in Staffordshire.
This was the date of his birth in Old Style. New Style (introduced in 1752) made this date 18...

11 September 1709: In a year of difficult military conditions...

National or international item

11 September 1709

In a year of difficult military conditions and friction among members of the anti-French alliance, the Duke of Marlborough won a much trumpeted but in fact somewhat inconclusive victory near the village of Malplaquet.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Susanna Wesley: October 1709

Women writers item
Author event in Susanna Wesley

October 1709

SW wrote to her son Samuel , who was away at school, expressing a hope to do some small service to my children.
Wesley, Susanna. “Introduction”. Susanna Wesley: The Complete Writings, edited by Charles, Jr Wallace, Oxford University Press, 1997.
12

October 1709: Charles Povey started a privately run postal...

Building item

October 1709

Charles Povey started a privately run postal service in London; it was soon suppressed.
Finch, Anne. The Anne Finch Wellesley Manuscript Poems: A Critical Edition. Editors McGovern, Barbara and Charles H. Hinnant, University of Georgia Press, 1998.
165

Delarivier Manley: 9 October 1709

Women writers item
Author event in Delarivier Manley

9 October 1709

The printer and publisher of DM 's New Atalantis were arrested.
Manley, Delarivier. “Introduction”. New Atalantis, edited by Ros Ballaster, Pickering and Chatto, 1991, p. v - xxviii.
vi