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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Mary Bosanquet Fletcher: 14 August 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Bosanquet Fletcher

14 August 1785

After MBF had watched for days and nights by the sickbed of her husband, John Fletcher , he died. She later wrote: the dreadful moment came! The sun of my earthly joys for ever set.
Fletcher, Mary Bosanquet. The Life of Mrs. Mary Fletcher. Editor Moore, Henry, 1751 - 1844, T. Mason and G. Lane, 1837.
153

Charlotte Dacre: Between 15 and 20 August 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Charlotte Dacre

Between 15 and 20 August 1785

John King , father of CD and of Sophia King , divorced their mother (using a rabbinical court at Leghorn in Italy) and married an English countess.
Dacre, Charlotte. “Introduction”. Zofloya; or, The Moor, edited by Adriana Craciun, Broadview, 1997, pp. 11-36.
12
McCalman, Ian. Radical Underworld. Cambridge University Press, 1988.
36-7

Thomas De Quincey: 15 August 1785

Writing climate item
Author event in Thomas De Quincey

15 August 1785

TDQ , essayist and autobiographer, was born in Manchester.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2026, 22 vols. plus supplements.

Elizabeth Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire: 16 August 1785

Women writers item

16 August 1785

Lady Elizabeth Foster (later Duchess of Devonshire) gave birth, in a boarding-house-cum-brothel in Vietri on the Gulf of Salerno, to a daughter by the Duke of Devonshire .
Foreman, Amanda. Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. HarperCollins, 1998.
171-2

Mary Bosanquet Fletcher: 18 August 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Bosanquet Fletcher

18 August 1785

The day after the funeral of her husband John Fletcher , while her soul was as in the lion's den,
Fletcher, Mary Bosanquet. The Life of Mrs. Mary Fletcher. Editor Moore, Henry, 1751 - 1844, T. Mason and G. Lane, 1837.
155
MBF wrote a detailed and heart-rending account to John Wesley of the death.
Fletcher, Mary Bosanquet. The Life of Mrs. Mary Fletcher. Editor Moore, Henry, 1751 - 1844, T. Mason and G. Lane, 1837.
156-65

Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire: By 29 August 1785

Women writers item

By 29 August 1785

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire , bore her second child: another girl, named Henrietta or Harriet after her aunt Bessborough, and known in the family as Harryo.
Foreman, Amanda. Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. HarperCollins, 1998.
171

Elizabeth Hands: By late August 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Elizabeth Hands

By late August 1785

EH bore her elder daughter (named Elizabeth after her), whom in a poem she calls the joy of herself and her husband .
Hands, Elizabeth. The Death of Amnon. Printed for the Author, 1789.
123

Anne Francis: By September 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Anne Francis

By September 1785

AF published, again through Dodsley , The Obsequies of Demetrius Poliorcetes : A Poem, based on a story in Plutarch .
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
60 (September 1785): 230

Eliza Parsons: 8 September 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Eliza Parsons

8 September 1785

EP was appointed to minor employment in the royal household: Sempstress in Ordinary to the Wardrobe.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Archives of the Royal Literary Fund, 1790-1918.
Morton, Karen. A Life Marketed as Fiction. An Analysis of the Works of Eliza Parsons. Valancourt Books, 2011.
7

Anna Letitia Barbauld: 17 September 1785-June 1786

Women writers item
Author event in Anna Letitia Barbauld

17 September 1785-June 1786

After closing Palgrave School , ALB and her husband toured in Europe.
McCarthy, William et al. “Introduction”. The Poems of Anna Letitia Barbauld, University of Georgia Press, 1994, p. xxi - xlvi.
xliv
Rodgers, Betsy. Georgian Chronicle: Mrs Barbauld and her Family. Methuen, 1958.
93-7

Sarah Trimmer: 21 September 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Sarah Trimmer

21 September 1785

ST began keeping her diary, in which she copied letters, and included meditations and prayers.
Trimmer, Sarah. Some Account of the Life and Writings of Mrs. Trimmer. F.C and J. Rivington and J. Johnson, and J. Hatchard, 1814, 2 vols.
1: 66

September 1785: The Society for the Support and Encouragement...

Building item

September 1785

The Society for the Support and Encouragement of Sunday Schools (Sunday School Society) was founded in London.
Laqueur, Thomas. Religion and Respectability. Yale University Press, 1976.
34
Laqueur, Thomas. Religion and Respectability. Yale University Press, 1976.
33-4
Curtis, Stanley James. History of Education in Great Britain. Seventh, University Tutorial Press, 1967.
199

Elizabeth, Margravine of Anspach: October 1785

Women writers item

October 1785

Lady Elizabeth Craven , who had been living near Versailles since her first marriage ended, set out to travel by stages southwards through France and Italy as far as Florence and Venice, then homewards...

Catharine Macaulay: By October 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Catharine Macaulay

By October 1785

CM (with her husband ) sailed from New York to France; they spent their time at Aix-en-Provence and Marseilles.
Hill, Bridget. The Republican Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian. Clarendon Press, 1992.
126, 128
Hill, Bridget. “Daughter and Mother: Some new light on Catharine Macaulay and her family”. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
22
, No. 1, 1 Mar.–31 May 1999, pp. 35-49.
35, 41

1 October 1785: The year after Johnson's death, Boswell published...

Writing climate item

1 October 1785

The year after Johnson 's death, Boswell published The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides.
Boswell, James, 1740 - 1795. Boswell: The English Experiment, 1785-1789. Editors Lustig, Irma S. and Frederick A. Pottle, Heinemann, 1986.
4

18 October 1785: The great comic actress Dorothy Jordan made...

Building item

18 October 1785

The great comic actress Dorothy Jordan made her London debut at Drury Lane Theatre .
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960–1968, 5 vols.
5: 819, 836

27 October 1785: The London Hospital Medical College, established...

Building item

27 October 1785

The London Hospital Medical College , established this year, opened its operating theatre.
Harte, Negley. The University of London 1836-1986. Athlone, 1986.
57
The World of Learning. 45th ed., Allen and Unwin, 1995.
1620
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
55 (1785): 914

Mary Wollstonecraft: November 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Wollstonecraft

November 1785

MW set sail for Lisbon in Portugal to the aid of Fanny Blood , who was married, pregnant, and dying of tuberculosis.
Tomalin, Claire. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Revised, Penguin, 1992.
54-5

Laetitia-Matilda Hawkins : By November 1785

Women writers item

By November 1785

Thomas Hookham issued Constance: A Novel as a young lady's first literary attempt. Though usually ascribed to the only thirteen-year-old Eliza Kirkham Strong (later Mathews) , it is now known to be by...

Elizabeth Inchbald: By November 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Elizabeth Inchbald

By November 1785

A two-act farce by EI , Appearance is Against Them (played at Covent Garden the previous month), was published by George Robinson .
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
60 (1785): 393
Manvell, Roger. Elizabeth Inchbald: England’s Principal Woman Dramatist and Independent Woman of Letters in 18th Century London. University Press of America, 1987.
34

Mid 1780s: Male investigators of the problem of prostitution...

Building item

Mid 1780s

Male investigators of the problem of prostitution were (according to cultural historian Tony Henderson ) convinced that nine out of ten prostitutes were women originally from the middle ranks.
Henderson, Tony. Disorderly Women. Longman, 1999.
188

Lady Caroline Lamb: 13 November 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Lady Caroline Lamb

13 November 1785

Caroline Ponsonby (later LCL ) was born, the third child and only girl in a family of four.
Douglass, Paul. Lady Caroline Lamb. Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
1

Anna Seward: December 1785-January 1786

Women writers item
Author event in Anna Seward

December 1785-January 1786

A few months after attending a music festival at Manchester, AS stayed three weeks at Wellesbourne near Warwick with relations of the aged Mary Delany .
Ashmun, Margaret. The Singing Swan. Yale University Press; H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1931.
134-5

Mary Hays: December 1785

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Hays

December 1785

The Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure printed MH 's poems A Sonnet and Ode to Her Bullfinch.
Hays, Mary. “Chronology and Introduction”. The Correspondence (1779-1843) of Mary Hays, British Novelist, edited by Marilyn Brooks, Edwin Mellen, 2004, pp. xv - xx; 1.
xv

Margaret Holford, the elder: Probably late 1785

Women writers item

Probably late 1785

An epistolary novel in three volumes, entitled Fanny: A Novel: In a Series of Letters, appeared as by an anonymous Lady: it is the first identified publication by Margaret Holford the elder .
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press, 2000, 2 vols.
1: 358-9