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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Dorothy Wordsworth: Later July 1797

Women writers item
Author event in Dorothy Wordsworth

Later July 1797

William and DW moved from Racedown in Dorset to Alfoxden House, four miles from Nether Stowey in Somerset, at the foot of the Quantock Hills, in order to be close to Coleridge and...

19 July 1797: Stamp Duty (the tax imposed by the Stamp...

National or international item

19 July 1797

Stamp Duty (the tax imposed by the Stamp Act) on periodicals was raised from twopence to threepence halfpenny a sheet.
Thomas, Donald. A Long Time Burning: The History of Literary Censorship in England. Frederick A. Praeger, 1969.
141
Nevett, Terry R. Advertising in Britain: A History. Heinemann, 1982.
25
The Statutes of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Printed by J. Bentham, 1762–2026.
45: 41

By 22 July 1797: William Beckford published a second and more...

Women writers item

By 22 July 1797

William Beckford published a second and more marked burlesque attack on women's writing: Azemia: A Descriptive and Sentimental Novel. Interspersed with Pieces of Poetry.
Beckford, William. Azemia. Sampson Low, 1797, 2 vols.
1: 21; 2: 43, 61, 236ff
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
2nd ser. 20 (1797): 470

Anna Letitia Barbauld: End of July 1797

Women writers item
Author event in Anna Letitia Barbauld

End of July 1797

The young Samuel Taylor Coleridge walked forty miles in order to meet ALB and her husband . He had already been influenced by her poetry, and she had reviewed his.
McCarthy, William et al. “Introduction”. The Poems of Anna Letitia Barbauld, University of Georgia Press, 1994, p. xxi - xlvi.
xlv
McCarthy, William. Anna Letitia Barbauld, Voice of the Enlightenment. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.
399-400

31 July 1797: The London Corresponding Society's final...

National or international item

31 July 1797

The LondonCorresponding Society 's final public meeting was dispersed as illegal by magistrates.
Goodwin, Albert. The Friends of Liberty: The English Democratic Movement in the Age of the French Revolution. Hutchinson, 1979.
412-3

Margaret Bryan: After August 1797

Women writers item
Author event in Margaret Bryan

After August 1797

MB published her first book, A Compendious System of Astronomy, dedicated to the pupils at her school.
Orlando is grateful to Nicole Infanta Keller for enabling the updating of this entry, especially the information...

Anne Burke: By August 1797

Women writers item
Author event in Anne Burke

By August 1797

AB was once again in dire straits for money, as she told the Royal Literary Fund in a letter which she was able to deliver only after borrowing clothes in which to do so.
Archives of the Royal Literary Fund, 1790-1918.

Maria Edgeworth: By August 1797

Women writers item
Author event in Maria Edgeworth

By August 1797

ME was probably chief author of A Letter to the Right Hon. the Earl of Charlemont on the Tellograph and on the Defence of Ireland, published under her father 's name.
Another work of...

Caroline Herschel : 14 August 1797

Building item
Author event in Caroline Herschel

14 August 1797

CH made her final discovery of a previously unknown comet. After only one hour's sleep she set out to ride the twenty-seven miles from Slough to the Royal Observatory at Greenwich to break the news.
Brock, Claire. The Comet Sweeper: Caroline Herschel’s astronomical ambition. Thriplow, 2007.
164

Mary Wollstonecraft: 11:20 p.m. 30 August 1797

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Wollstonecraft

11:20 p.m. 30 August 1797

After a long and painful labour, MW bore her second daughter, Mary .
Tomalin, Claire. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Revised, Penguin, 1992.
275-6

Mary Shelley: 30 August 1797

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Shelley

30 August 1797

MS was born at 29 The Polygon, Somers Town, London.
Shelley, Mary. “Introduction”. Frankenstein, edited by David Lorne Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf, Broadview, 1994, pp. 11-43.
41
Sunstein, Emily W. Mary Shelley: Romance and Reality. Little, Brown, 1989.
18

Mary Charlton: By September 1797

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Charlton

By September 1797

MC published with the Minerva Press her second book and first big success: Andronica; or, The Fugitive Bride, A Novel.
McLeod, Deborah. The Minerva Press. University of Alberta, 1997.
260

Hannah Webster Foster: By September 1797

Writing climate item
Author event in Hannah Webster Foster

By September 1797

The year after her youngest child was born, HWF , as a Lady of Massachusetts, published the highly sentimental The Coquette, her most successful novel, at Boston, Massachusetts.

Mary Wollstonecraft: 2 September 1797

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Wollstonecraft

2 September 1797

This evening, it seems, MW developed septicaemia following childbirth.
Tomalin, Claire. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Revised, Penguin, 1992.
279

Susannah Gunning: 2 September 1797

Women writers item
Author event in Susannah Gunning

2 September 1797

SG 's estranged husband died abroad, leaving her and her daughter his entailed—but mortgaged—Irish estates.
Gantz, Ida. The Pastel Portrait. Cresset Press, 1963.
173, 175

4 September 1797: Deputies of the French Directory purged the...

National or international item

4 September 1797

Deputies of the French Directory purged the Legislature of conservatives.
Kafker, Frank A., and James M. Laux, editors. The French Revolution: Conflicting Interpretations. 4th ed., R. E. Krieger, 1989.
xv, 316-7
Soboul, Albert. The French Revolution 1787-1799. Translators Forrest, Alan and Colin Jones, Vintage, 1975.
508-9
Chisholm, Hugh, editor. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Eleventh, Cambridge University Press, 1911.
10: 859

Mary Wollstonecraft: 10 September 1797

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Wollstonecraft

10 September 1797

Eleven days after childbirth, at twenty to eight in the morning, MW died of septicaemia or puerperal fever, having fought against it for longer than anyone expected.
Tomalin, Claire. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Revised, Penguin, 1992.
282

Eliza Kirkham Mathews: 19 September 1797

Women writers item
Author event in Eliza Kirkham Mathews

19 September 1797

Eliza Kirkham Strong married a young actor, Charles Mathews , at Swansea.
Mathews, Anne Jackson. Memoirs of Charles Mathews, Comedian. R. Bentley, 1838–1839, 4 vols.
1: 203

Elizabeth Meeke: Soon after 19 September 1797

Women writers item
Author event in Elizabeth Meeke

Soon after 19 September 1797

EM published, under her name, Palmira and Ermance. A Novel—the same year that she also launched her pseudonym.
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press, 2000, 2 vols.
1: 721

Leah Sumbel: October 1797

Women writers item
Author event in Leah Sumbel

October 1797

The actress Mary Wells became LS when, in the Fleet Prison in London, she married her second husband, Joseph Haim Sumbel , a Moroccan Jew educated in France.
Highfill, Philip H. et al. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1973–1993.

Hannah More: By October 1797

Women writers item
Author event in Hannah More

By October 1797

HM 's Cheap Repository Tracts were issued in a two-volume collection (a format designed for middle-class, not working-class readers) by Marshall .
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
2d ser. 21 (1797): 236

Fanny Holcroft: 4 October 1797

Women writers item
Author event in Fanny Holcroft

4 October 1797

FH published in the Monthly Magazine an abolitionist poem, The Negro (whose protagonist, at the point of death, comes close to cursing the Christian race). It may, however, be chiefly by her father .
Ashfield, Andrew, editor. Romantic Women Poets. Manchester University Press, 1997–1998, 2 vols.
2:91-2, 271

11 October 1797: A British victory over the Dutch in the naval...

National or international item

11 October 1797

A British victory over the Dutch in the naval battle of Camperdown restored the reputation of the navy after the mutiny at Spithead earlier that year.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Adam Duncan

Mary Lamb, 1764 - 1847: 17 October 1797

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Lamb, 1764 - 1847

17 October 1797

Mary Lamb wrote in a letter from the asylum (as transcribed by Charles ): I have no bad terrifying dreams—which suggests that she had been having this kind of dream in the recent past.
Wordsworth, Jonathan. The Bright Work Grows: Women Writers of the Romantic Age. Woodstock Books, 1997.
162
qtd. in
Burton, Sarah. A Double Life: A Biography of Charles and Mary Lamb. Viking, 2003.
107

Jane Austen: 1 November 1797

Women writers item
Author event in Jane Austen

1 November 1797

JA 's father wrote to offer her First Impressions, anonymously, to the quality publishers Cadell and Davies ; his offer to send the manuscript was declined by return of post.
Honan, Park. Jane Austen: Her Life. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987.
123
Le Faye, Deirdre. “Chronology of Jane Austen’s Life”. The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, edited by Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 1-11.
5