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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1773: A bill that had been enacted by the colonial...

Building item

1773

A bill that had been enacted by the colonial legislature of Pennsylvania to permit divorce was disallowed by the Privy Council in London.
Staves, Susan. Married Women’s Separate Property in England, 1660 - 1833. Harvard University Press, 1990.
24

1773: An Act was passed for erecting more mile-posts...

Building item

1773

An Act was passed for erecting more mile-posts and signposts.
Porter, Roy. English Society in the Eighteenth Century. Penguin, 1982.
282

Mary Bosanquet Fletcher: 2 February 1773

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Bosanquet Fletcher

2 February 1773

MBF gave her first actual sermon, that is a public address tied to a text in the Bible: this is the first known instance of a Methodist woman preaching from a scriptural text.
Burge, Janet. Women Preachers in Community: Sarah Ryan, Sarah Crosby, Mary Bosanquet. Foundery Press, 1996.
21
Stanley, Susie Cunningham. Holy Boldness. University of Tennessee Press, 2002.
56-7

14 March 1773: Louise d'Epinay composed, in a letter to...

Writing climate item

14 March 1773

Louise d'Epinay composed, in a letter to Ferdinando Galiani , a riposte to Essai sur le charactère, les moeurs, et l'esprit des femmes by Antoine Leonard Thomas , which had appeared in early January 1772...

15 March 1773: Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer...

Writing climate item

15 March 1773

Oliver Goldsmith 's She Stoops to Conquer (second of his two comedies) had its first performance.
Goldsmith, Oliver. Collected Works. Editor Friedman, Arthur, Clarendon, 1966, 5 vols.
5: 89

Maria Edgeworth: Early March 1773

Women writers item
Author event in Maria Edgeworth

Early March 1773

ME 's mother, Anna Maria Edgeworth (nee Elers) , died ten days after bearing her third daughter (and fifth child).
Butler, Marilyn. Maria Edgeworth: A Literary Biography. Clarendon, 1972.
45

Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield: 24 March 1773

Writing climate item

24 March 1773

Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield , statesman, diplomatist and conduct letter-writer, died at Chesterfield House in London after about a decade of declining health.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2026, 22 vols. plus supplements.

11 April 1773: Boswell asked Johnson the reason why women...

Building item

11 April 1773

Boswell asked Johnson the reason why women servants were paid so much less than men, although the opposite would seem to reflect natural justice; Johnson had no answer.
Boswell, James, 1740 - 1795. Boswell’s Life of Johnson. Editors Hill, George Birkbeck and Laurence Fitzroy Powell, Clarendon, 1934, 6 vols.
2: 216-17

Mary Robinson: 12 April 1773

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Robinson

12 April 1773

Mary Darby married Thomas Robinson , a lawyer's clerk, at St Martin-in-the-Fields (now though not then in Trafalgar Square) in London.
Robinson, Mary. “Introduction”. Perdita: The Memoirs of Mary Robinson, edited by Moses Joseph Levy, Peter Owen, 1994.
xi
Robinson, Mary. “Introduction”. Mary Robinson: Selected Poems, edited by Judith Pascoe, Broadview, 2000, pp. 19-64.
63

Anne Grant: 28 April 1773

Women writers item
Author event in Anne Grant

28 April 1773

The future AG addressed to Harriet Reid a letter written to the moment in the Richardsonian style, bit by bit throughout the day.
Grant, Anne. Letters from the Mountains. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1806, 3 vols.
1: 6-22

J. S. Anna Liddiard: 29 April 1773

Women writers item
Author event in J. S. Anna Liddiard

29 April 1773

Jane Susanna Anna Wilkinson (later Liddiard) was born.
Ashfield, Andrew. Emails to Isobel Grundy about Ann Gomersall, Ann Hawkshaw, J. S. Anna Liddiard, Plumptre Sisters, Mary Ridgway Stockdale, Medora Gordon Byron. 8 Jan. 2016.
McGuire, James, and James Quinn, editors. Dictionary of Irish Biography. 2009, http://dib.cambridge.org/.
Wright, Julia M. “J. S. Anna Liddiard”. Irish Women Poets of the Romantic Period, edited by Stephen Behrendt, 2008.

Elizabeth, Margravine of Anspach: May 1773

Women writers item

May 1773

Lady Elizabeth Craven , aged twenty-three, drew the attention of the gossip columnists for the first but not for the last time when Town and Country Magazine reported her as engaged in criminal intercourse with...

Frances Brooke: May 1773

Women writers item
Author event in Frances Brooke

May 1773

The Haymarket Opera House was bought for FB and her actress friend Mary Ann Yates to run as joint managers.
McMullen, Lorraine. An Odd Attempt in a Woman: The Literary Life of Frances Brooke. University of British Columbia Press, 1983.
151
Catto, Susan J. Modest Ambition: The Influence of Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, and the Ideal of Female Diffidence on Sarah Fielding, Charlotte Lennox, and Frances Brooke. University of Oxford, 1998.
260

Hester Mulso Chapone: By May 1773

Women writers item
Author event in Hester Mulso Chapone

By May 1773

HMC published her anonymous Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, addressed to a Young Lady—her eldest niece—and dedicated to Elizabeth Montagu .
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
43 (1773): 241
Myers, Sylvia Harcstark. The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship, and the Life of the Mind in Eighteenth-Century England. Clarendon, 1990.
231

Anna Seward: May 1773

Women writers item
Author event in Anna Seward

May 1773

The thirty-year-old AS wrote one of her most forceful letters, polished like a polemical essay, about the prospect confronting a middle-class woman who does not marry.
Chisholm, Kate. “Bluestocking Feminism”. New Rambler, 2003, pp. 60-6.
60

Lady Rachel Russell: By May 1773

Women writers item
Author event in Lady Rachel Russell

By May 1773

The publisher Dilly issued Letters of Lady Rachel Russel, a selection of her less intimate letters. This marked her first appearance in print.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
35 (1773): 381

Anne Grant: Early 1773

Women writers item
Author event in Anne Grant

Early 1773

Anne MacVicar (later AG ) moved with her family from Inverness-shire into the Highlands proper.
Grant, Anne. Memoir and Correspondence of Mrs. Grant of Laggan. Editor Grant, John Peter, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1844, 3 vols.
1: 11

Martha Hale: 1 May 1773

Women writers item
Author event in Martha Hale

1 May 1773

MH and her husband moved into Chelsea Hospital when, on this date, he became its Lieutenant-Governor.
Burney, Frances. The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney (Madame D’Arblay). Editors Hemlow, Joyce and Althea Douglas, Clarendon Press, 1972–1984, 12 vols.
1: 75n10

By May 1773: William Russell anonymously published An...

Building item

By May 1773

William Russell anonymously published An Essay on the Character, Manner, and Genius of Women in different Ages, translated from the French of Antoine Leonard Thomas .
The Origins of Modern Feminism, 1567-1876. Quaritch, 1998.
1252
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
35 (1773): 376-81

Christian Milne: 15 May 1773

Women writers item
Author event in Christian Milne

15 May 1773

Christian Ross (later CM ) was born on this day, according to what she specifically told Elizabeth Isabella Spence , at Inverness in Scotland.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Letters from the North Highlands, During the Summer 1816. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1817.
57

Anne Grant: May 1773

Women writers item
Author event in Anne Grant

May 1773

Anne MacVicar (later AG ) stayed for two weeks with a relation, Collector MacVicar, at Oban on the West coast of Scotland.
Grant, Anne. Letters from the Mountains. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1807, 3 vols. .
1: 35, 66

Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire: By June 1773

Women writers item

By June 1773

Georgiana Spencer (who was about to turn sixteen, and who the next year became Duchess of Devonshire) has been credited with publishing anonymously Emma; or, The Unfortunate Attachment. A Sentimental Novel.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
35 (1773): 475
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.

Hannah More: By June 1773

Women writers item
Author event in Hannah More

By June 1773

HM 's didactic drama A Search after Happiness (written earlier for performance by schoolgirls) was printed as by a young Lady.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
35 (1773): 474

After June 1773: Over protest from the House of Lords, the...

National or international item

After June 1773

Over protest from the House of Lords , the India Regulating Act enacted the first direct British government intervention in the administration of India.
Thomas, Peter David Garner. British Politics and the Stamp Act Crisis: The First Phase of the American Revolution, 1763-1767. Clarendon, 1975.
9
Bayly, Christopher Alan. Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire. Cambridge University Press, 1988.
75
Newman, Gerald, editor. Britain in the Hanoverian Age, 1714-1837: An Encyclopedia. Garland, 1997.
354
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
43 (1773): 299

Olaudah Equiano: 15 June 1773

Writing climate item
Author event in Olaudah Equiano

15 June 1773

OE , off the coast of Shetland as a member of Constantine Phipps 's Arctic expedition, was engaged in the earliest literary activity he mentions, keeping a journal of the voyage, when he accidentally set...