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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7 March 1785: A paper by James Hutton was read to the Royal...

Building item

7 March 1785

A paper by James Hutton was read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh , which first propounded his theory, based on the study of rocks and fossils, that the earth was millions of years old...

7 March 1785: Novelist Alessandro Manzoni was born in Milan,...

Writing climate item

7 March 1785

Novelist Alessandro Manzoni was born in Milan, Italy.
Wall, Bernard. Alessandro Manzoni. Yale University Press, 1954.
63
“The Catholic Encyclopedia”. New Advent.

Charlotte Smith: Spring 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Charlotte Smith

Spring 1785

CS returned from Normandy ahead of her husband.
Fletcher, Loraine. Charlotte Smith: A Critical Biography. Macmillan, 1998.
78

Anna Maria Bennett: April 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Anna Maria Bennett

April 1785

AMB 's first, anonymous novel, Anna; or, Memoirs of a Welch Heiress, interspersed with Anecdotes of a Nabob, was advertised as published.
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press, 2000, 2 vols.
1: 352

Leah Sumbel: 15 April 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Leah Sumbel

15 April 1785

The Fool, a farce by Edward Topham , lover of Mary Wells (later LS ), had some help from her in its writing.
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960–1968, 5 vols.
5: 787

15 April 1785: The Royal Irish Academy, founded this year,...

Building item

15 April 1785

The Royal Irish Academy , founded this year, held its first meeting at Charlemont House in Dublin, the town house of Lord Charlemont .
Curley, Thomas. “Johnson and the Irish: A Post-Colonial Survey of the Irish Literary Renaissance in Imperial Great Britain”. The Age of Johnson, edited by Paul J. Korshin and Jack Lynch, Vol.
12
, AMS Press, 2001, pp. 67-197.
156

Anna Seward: By May 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Anna Seward

By May 1785

An anonymous response was published to the reviews of AS 's verse novel: Hyper-criticism on Miss Seward's Louisa, including Observations on the Nature and Privileges of Poetic Language.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
59 (1785): 391

Henrietta Maria Bowdler: 2 May 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Henrietta Maria Bowdler

2 May 1785

Thomas Bowdler senior, father of HMB and other famous children, died a year after his eldest child, Jane .
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Elizabeth Stuart Bowdler

Ellis Cornelia Knight : 2 May 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Ellis Cornelia Knight

2 May 1785

ECK and her mother left Rome, where they had been living for some eight years, to travel south to Naples.
Knight, Ellis Cornelia. The Autobiography of Miss Knight. Editor Fulford, Roger, William Kimber & Co., 1960.
41

Catherine Phillips: 13 May 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Catherine Phillips

13 May 1785

At a date when CP had already had trouble with her health, James Boswell heard her preach very well at a meeting at White Hart Court in London.
Lustig, Irma S. “The Myth of Johnson’s Misogyny in the Life of Johnson: Another View”. Boswell in Scotland and Beyond, edited by Thomas Crawford and Thomas Crawford, Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 1997.
78

Catharine Macaulay: June 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Catharine Macaulay

June 1785

CM stayed ten days with George Washington at his estate of Mount Vernon, Virginia.
Hill, Bridget. The Republican Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian. Clarendon Press, 1992.
127

June 1785-November 1787: The desirability of French as a school subject...

Building item

June 1785-November 1787

The desirability of French as a school subject for girls, together with low prices in France, led several English schoolmistresses to transport their schools lock, stock, and barrel across the Channel.
Skedd, Susan. “Women Teachers and the Expansion of Girls’ Schooling in England, c. 1760-1820”. Gender in Eighteenth-Century England: Roles, Representations and Responsibilities, edited by Hannah Barker and Elaine Chalus, Longman, 1997, pp. 101-25.
108

Ann Yearsley: Before 11 June 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Ann Yearsley

Before 11 June 1785

AY published Poems, on Several Occasions, with the help and patronage of Hannah More , who raised a thousand subscribers for the volume.
Wordsworth, Jonathan. The Bright Work Grows: Women Writers of the Romantic Age. Woodstock Books, 1997.
38

18 June 1785: Henry Mackenzie in the Lounger urged the...

Writing climate item

18 June 1785

Henry Mackenzie in the Lounger urged the rehabilitation and reform of the novel: by implication its re-masculinization.
London, April. Women and Property in the Eighteenth-Century Novel. Cambridge University Press, 1999.
66n2

Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis: 25 June 1785

Writing climate item

25 June 1785

SFG left France to visit London, which she enjoyed, returning for a longer stay in 1788.
Broglie, Gabriel de. Madame de Genlis. Librairie Académique Perrin, 1985.
145

Lady Eleanor Butler: Summer 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Lady Eleanor Butler

Summer 1785

By now the Plas Newydd grounds of Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby , the Ladies of Llangollen, were so famous that, by request, they sent plans to Queen Charlotte .
Mavor, Elizabeth. The Ladies of Llangollen. Michael Joseph, 1971.
108n

Clara Reeve: By July 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Clara Reeve

By July 1785

CR published at Colchester her most famous work, The Progress of Romance through Times, Countries, and Manners, incorporating The History of Charoba, Queen of Ægypt.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
60 (1785): 54
Trainer, James, and Clara Reeve. “Introduction”. The Old English Baron, Oxford University Press, 1977.
xxi

9 July 1785: Publisher-printer William Strahan died worth...

Writing climate item

9 July 1785

Publisher-printer William Strahan died worth nearly £100,000. His firm was at this date operating eleven printing presses.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2026, 22 vols. plus supplements.
Suarez, Michael F. “The Business of Literature: The Book Trade in England from Milton to Blake”. A Companion to Literature from Milton to Blake, edited by David Womersley, Blackwell, 2000, pp. 131-47.
134
Buchan, James. “That sh—te Creech”. London Review of Books, 5 Apr. 2007, pp. 13-14.
14

Elizabeth Montagu: 17 July 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Elizabeth Montagu

17 July 1785

The Duchess of Portland , friend of EM and the Bluestockings, and patron of art and literature, died.
Blunt, Reginald, and Elizabeth Montagu. Mrs Montagu, "Queen of the Blues", Her Letters and Friendships from 1762 to 1800. Constable, 1923, 2 vols.
2: 191-2
Myers, Sylvia Harcstark. The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship, and the Life of the Mind in Eighteenth-Century England. Clarendon, 1990.
28, 32-44, 102-3, 267
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
55 (1785): 575

Maria Callcott: 19 July 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Maria Callcott

19 July 1785

Maria Dundas (later MC ) was born at Papcastle near Cockermouth in Cumberland.
Gotch, Rosamund Brunel. Maria, Lady Callcott, The Creator of ’Little Arthur’. J. Murray, 1937.
7

Anne Burke: Late July 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Anne Burke

Late July 1785

AB 's first novel, the two-volume, anonymous, epistolary Eleanora: From the Sorrows of Werter. A Tale, was part of the overwhelming response to Goethe 's The Sorrows of Young Werther.
Goethe's novel, published...

Hannah More: 21 July 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Hannah More

21 July 1785

HM wrote to tell Montagu of Yearsley 's blackest ingratitude.
Waldron, Mary. Lactilla, Milkwoman of Clifton: The Life and Writings of Ann Yearsley, 1753-1806. University of Georgia Press, 1996.
65

Hester Lynch Piozzi: By August 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Hester Lynch Piozzi

By August 1785

HLP , while living in Florence, contributed poems to and wrote a preface for a Della Cruscan publication: The Florence Miscellany.
The leading light in this group was Robert Merry .
Clifford, James L. Hester Lynch Piozzi (Mrs Thrale). Clarendon Press, 1987.
250-1

By August 1785: William Cowper published The Task, his meditative-didactic...

Writing climate item

By August 1785

William Cowper published The Task, his meditative-didactic poem in six books. Writing it was a task set before him by his friend Lady Austen .
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
55 (1785): 637, 985

Elizabeth Inchbald: 4 August 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Elizabeth Inchbald

4 August 1785

I'll Tell You What, a comedy by EI , opened in the Haymarket summer season and proved to be her second success.
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960–1968, 5 vols.
5: 813
Manvell, Roger. Elizabeth Inchbald: England’s Principal Woman Dramatist and Independent Woman of Letters in 18th Century London. University Press of America, 1987.
31