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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1789: The price of wheat in Britain and Ireland...

Building item

1789

The price of wheat in Britain and Ireland reached an unprecedented high of 45 shillings a hundredweight.
Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837. Yale University Press, 1992.
158
A hundredweight (a measure of 112 pounds weight or one cwt) must be meant here, not a quarter.

1789: A pamphlet said to be written by anonymous...

Building item

1789

A pamphlet said to be written by anonymous Swedenborgians , A Plan for a Free Community upon the Coast of Africa, was panned by the Critical Review.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
70 (1790): 220
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

1789: Erasmus Darwin published The Loves of the...

Writing climate item

1789

Erasmus Darwin published The Loves of the Plants, as the second part of his scientific poem The Botanic Garden.
English Short Title Catalogue. http://estc.bl.uk/.

1789: Jeremy Bentham's Introduction to the Principles...

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1789

Jeremy Bentham 's Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation was published.
Briggs, John et al. Crime and Punishment in England: An Introductory History. St Martin’s, 1996.
158-9

By January 1789: The Society for Bettering the Conditions...

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By January 1789

The Society for Bettering the Conditions and Increasing the Comfort of the Poor, founded by future Clapham Sect members and others, was planning expansion; its plans for amelioration claimed a scientific basis.
Porter, Roy. English Society in the Eighteenth Century. Penguin, 1982.
297
Henderson, Tony. Disorderly Women. Longman, 1999.
178

From 1789: John Howlett, a prominent former supporter...

Building item

From 1789

John Howlett , a prominent former supporter of the enclosure of common land, changed his tune and argued against the practice in Arthur Young 's Annals of Agriculture.
Neeson, J. M. Commoners: Common Right, Enclosure and Social Change in England, 1700-1820. Cambridge University Press, 1993.
25-7, 49-50

1789-98: Essays in Physiognomy (translated by Henry...

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1789-98

Essays in Physiognomy (translated by Henry Hunter from Johann Kaspar Lavater ), with engravings by Johann Heinrich Füssli (known in England as Henry Fuseli), set off crazes for physiognomy and silhouettes.
Donato, Clorinda. “Reading the Face: Lavater in the Twenty-first Century”. Lumen, edited by William Kinsley et al., Vol.
xx
, 2001, pp. 83-100.
83, 89-90, 91, 97 and n12

1789: William Blake published the first of his...

Writing climate item

1789

William Blake published the first of his engraved books of lyrics, Songs of Innocence.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 1985.

1789: At the Rev. R. Britton's academy for boys...

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1789

At the Rev. R. Britton 's academy for boys and girls at Hope Street, Spittalfield, near Perth, the curriculum included reading, writing, arithmetic, and book-keeping.
Hans, Nicholas A. New Trends in Education in the Eighteenth Century. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951.
250

January 1789: In France Emmanuel Sieyès published an immensely...

National or international item

January 1789

In FranceEmmanuel Sieyès published an immensely influential pamphlet, whose title in English is What is the Third Estate?
Runciman, David. “Shockingly Worldly”. London Review of Books, 23 Oct. 2003, pp. 7-10.
7

1789: Stamp Duty (the tax levied on periodicals...

National or international item

1789

Stamp Duty (the tax levied on periodicals by the Stamp Act) was raised from a penny halfpenny to twopence a sheet.
Thomas, Donald. A Long Time Burning: The History of Literary Censorship in England. Frederick A. Praeger, 1969.
141

Mary Ann Kelty: 1789

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Ann Kelty

1789

MAK was born at Cambridge, after a pregnancy during which her mother's relations with her father were very difficult.
Kelty, Mary Ann. Reminiscences of Thought and Feeling. W. Pickering, 1852.
146

Eliza Fletcher: By early 1789

Women writers item
Author event in Eliza Fletcher

By early 1789

Eliza Dawson (later EF ) sent to Ann Yearsley a poetic epistle whose topics included despair (apparently ascribing that emotion to Yearsley).
Waldron, Mary. “A Different Kind of Patronage: Ann Yearsley’s Later Friends”. The Age of Johnson, edited by Paul J. Korshin and Jack Lynch, Vol.
13
, AMS Press, 2002, pp. 283-35.
307

Ann Yearsley: Late 1788 or early 1789

Women writers item
Author event in Ann Yearsley

Late 1788 or early 1789

AY (perhaps in an attempt to frighten her patrons into activity on her behalf) declared her intention of leaving her quiet cottage to take up the management of a large public-House.
qtd. in
Waldron, Mary. “A Different Kind of Patronage: Ann Yearsley’s Later Friends”. The Age of Johnson, edited by Paul J. Korshin and Jack Lynch, Vol.
13
, AMS Press, 2002, pp. 283-35.
307

Anna Maria Bennett: January 1789

Women writers item
Author event in Anna Maria Bennett

January 1789

AMB advertised as published at Bath, with her name, her Agnes De-Courci, A Domestic Tale, an epistolary novel in the style of Richardson .
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press, 2000, 2 vols.
1: 467

Elizabeth Sarah Gooch: 16 January 1789

Women writers item
Author event in Elizabeth Sarah Gooch

16 January 1789

ESG was on a journey northwards with Captain Lindsay, taking in Scotland (she stayed three and a half months in Glasgow) and the scenes of her youth (that is Yorkshire).
Major, Joanne, and Sarah Murden. “Elizabeth Sarah Villa-Real—Mrs Gooch”. All Things Georgian, 1 May 2014.
Gooch, Elizabeth Sarah. The Life of Mrs Gooch. Printed for the authoress and sold by C. and G. Kearsley, 1792, 3 vols.
3: 93

Sarah Wentworth Morton: 21 January 1789

Writing climate item
Author event in Sarah Wentworth Morton

21 January 1789

William Hill Brown 's epistolary, sentimental The Power of Sympathy; or, The Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth, the first American novel, presented an episode of seduction and suicide modelled on that of...

Frances Brooke: 23 January 1789

Women writers item
Author event in Frances Brooke

23 January 1789

FB died at Sleaford in Lincolnshire, two days after her husband had died in Norfolk.
McMullen, Lorraine. An Odd Attempt in a Woman: The Literary Life of Frances Brooke. University of British Columbia Press, 1983.
211
Brooke, Frances. “Introduction”. The Excursion, edited by Paula R. Backscheider and Hope D. Cotton, University Press of Kentucky, 1997, p. ix - xlix.
xlix

Sarah Trimmer: February 1789

Women writers item
Author event in Sarah Trimmer

February 1789

ST 's Family Magazine printed anecdotes of negroes.
Feminist Companion Archive.

February-March 1789: The proportion of working-class men eligible...

Building item

February-March 1789

The proportion of working-class men eligible to vote for the Estates-General (or parliament) in France was greater than that having the vote in England.
Fletcher, Loraine. Charlotte Smith: A Critical Biography. Macmillan, 1998.
129

February 1789: French people compiled cahiers des doléances,...

National or international item

February 1789

French people compiled cahiers des doléances, or lists of grievances.
Kafker, Frank A., and James M. Laux, editors. The French Revolution: Conflicting Interpretations. 4th ed., R. E. Krieger, 1989.
ix
Levy, Darline Gay et al., translators. Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789-1975: Selected Documents Translated with Notes and Commentary. University of Illinois Press, 1979.
22-6

Frances Burney: 2 February 1789

Women writers item
Author event in Frances Burney

2 February 1789

FB , walking on doctor's orders in Kew Gardens and understanding that the madking was safely elsewhere, was accosted by him and (still following orders) ran away.
Burney, Frances. Journals and Letters. Editors Sabor, Peter and Lars E. Troide, Penguin, 2001.
280ff

Elizabeth, Margravine of Anspach: By 6 February 1789

Women writers item

By 6 February 1789

Elizabeth, Lady Craven , published her Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople. In a series of letters from the Right Honourable Elizabeth Lady Craven, to his serene highness the Margrave of Brandebourg, Anspach, and Bareith.
OCLC WorldCat. 1992–1998, http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.
Anspach, Elizabeth, Margravine of. “Introduction”. The Beautiful Lady Craven, edited by Lewis Saul Benjamin and Alexander Meyrick Broadley, Bodley Head, 1914, p. i - cxxxviii.
li

Anne Francis: 14 February 1789

Women writers item
Author event in Anne Francis

14 February 1789

The Norwich Mercury carried an 80-line poem by AFOn His Majesty's illness (George III 's first serious and prolonged attack of porphyria).
Chandler, David. “’The Athens of England’: Norwich as a Literary Center in the Late Eighteenth Century”. Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
43
, No. 2, 1 Dec. 2010–28 Feb. 2011, pp. 171-92.
185

Mary Harcourt: 17 February 1789

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Harcourt

17 February 1789

MH composed the earliest entry to be included nearly a hundred years later when her journal of life at Court was printed as Mrs. Harcourt's Diary of the Court of George III.
Harcourt, Mary. “Diary of the Court of King George III”. Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society, 1871–1872.
3