Exhibit

Ring Cycle (1993) by Diana Bell is a sculpture created with oil, paint, sawdust, and ink on wood. Its images are shared with the Orlando Project by the artist, via CC-BY-4.0.

An undated letter by Benger, whose hand is one of the least legible of her time.  She writes to one of her publishers, Cosmo Orme (1780-1859), beginning, ‘Let me hope Mr Orme will kindly make my apologies to Mr J-- for having so long detained his Article …’.

Michael Londry, Hilda Londry Collection

Oil painting associated with Sarah Harriet Burney, by Thomas Lawrence, which has been associated with Frances Burney (her half-sister) and titled “Portrait of a Lady, possibly Sarah Harriet Burney.” It is held by Chawton House.

An unsigned two-page letter by Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, apparently written in a state of some distress. It is addressed to ‘My Dearest Themire’. ‘Themire’, derived from ‘Themis’, the name of the ancient Greek goddess of justice, was her nickname for her close friend Elizabeth Lamb, Viscountess Melbourne (1751-1818).

Michael Londry, Hilda Londry Collection

The upper cover of the Collier MS. The text, though worn and faded, appears to begin, ‘A Copy of / My Sisters / CommonPlace Book / Transcribed by me Margaret Collier / To be sent as soon as I am / buried to my good & worthy Friend / Mrs. Susan Carr …’. Margaret Collier (1717-1794) is referring to her sister Jane Collier (1715-1755), the satirist and novelist, and her friend Susanna Carr (d. 1808), who compiled a commonplace book herself.

Michael Londry, Hilda Londry Collection

An entry headed, ‘Sallys Scheme for a Farce call’d / The Lady’s Register or Daily Task’, apparently concerning a projected drama by Sarah Fielding, with one scene sketched here. Page 139 of the Collier MS.

Michael Londry, Hilda Londry Collection

The title-page of Corp’s Interesting Conversations on Moral and Religious Subjects, Interspersed with Narrative (1805). Until recently, the book was not widely recognized as Corp’s work.

Michael Londry, Hilda Londry Collection

Frontispiece for Female Poems On several Occasions. Written by Ephelia (London: William Downing for James Courtney, 1679, 1682). Undated, unsigned, probably fictitious. In the style of Sir Peter Lely’s Windsor Beauties. Frontispiece design -- overtly, even parodically, sexualised – copies the (posthumous) frontispiece portrait of Katherine Philips, Poems (Herringman, 1667). Bona fide armorial badge of Tilly, top of portrait, extinct by 1679; displayed metaphorically to assert elevated status of this controversial pseudonymous writer. (See Georgecink, in Reading Early Modern Women, NY & London: Routledge, 2004.)

Maureen E. Mulvihill, Mulvihill Collection

Title-page for Female Poems On several Occasions. Written by Ephelia (London: William Downing for James Courtney, 1679), with prominent vignette (fleuron 203, Rahir, Elzevier, 1896). But this is not Downing’s printer’s mark, nor decorative book arts, but a graphic clue to the book’s concealed authorship. Vignette design traced in 1999 to Mathys printers, Leiden, non-operational in 1679. The shape of the vignette suggests the coterie name of the present candidate for ‘Ephelia’: Stuart courtier and intelligencer: Mary (Villiers) Herbert Stuart Howard, Duchess of Richmond, familiarly, “the Butterfly”, possibly her code name during the English Civil Wars. (See Baroness D’Aulnoy, Memoires de la cour d'Angleterre…[in 1695]; English ed., London: Woodward & Morphew, 1708; Mulvihill, ANQ, Summer, 1999.)

Maureen E. Mulvihill, Mulvihill Collection

From Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson (1806), posthumously published. Portrait of facing B [page 1] of Lucy Hutchinson, holding a laurel wreath, with one of her twin sons (b. 1639). This 1806 likeness is a stipple engraving by Samuel Freeman, c1825-1850 (NPG D19953), after a twin set of Hutchinson family portraits by Robert Walker (1599-1658). (See Norbrook, “Lucy Hutchinson,” Oxford DNB, 2004; Angus Haldane, Portraits of the English Civil Wars, London: Unicorn Publishing Group, 2017.)

Maureen E. Mulvihill, Mulvihill Collection

This letter dates from a pivotal period in Lee’s life, when she was writing The Recess (1783-1785). The addressee of the letter is the publisher of that novel, Thomas Cadell. William Woodfall is mentioned as well. In several imprints of the time, Woodfall appears as printer where Cadell is publisher.

Michael Londry, Hilda Londry Collection

Allegorical frontispiece of an unshod Manley as pastoral shepherdess, reclining with laurel wreath and shepherd’s staff, directed by a bare-breasted angel with trumpet to the celestial figure of Truth, holding the Scales of Justice. Printed caption (five lines) begins, “O Sacred Truth, Inspire and Rule my Page”. From New Atalantis (London: Morphew, 1709; 6th ed., 1720, 4 vols).

Maureen E. Mulvihill, Mulvihill Collection

In this letter Marsh’s handwriting is particularly bold and visually engaging; even her punctuation is lively and emphatic. Addressing ‘My dear Miss Saunders’, she says, ‘I write one line to say - W[oul]d you kindly <span style=" text-decoration:="" underline="">secure that it sh[oul]d be kept as privately as possible that I am going to speak to these young men tonight -- God willing. -- I have a g[rea]t horror of unnecessary publicity …’.

Michael Londry, Hilda Londry Collection

An early manuscript copy of verses by Masters. Though unattributed and untitled in this manuscript, the lines were printed under the heading ‘Short Ejaculations’ in her book Familiar Letters and Poems on Several Occasions (1755), and were later widely anthologised in hymnals.

Michael Londry, Hilda Londry Collection

A tiny contemporary depiction of Barley Wood, Hannah More’s longtime residence (the image as printed is approximately 1 1/8 inches by 2 1/4 inches). The copy reproduced here was found affixed to the lower half of a MS leaf on which More had written out verses on liberty from William Cowper’s work The Task. Below the quote, she signed, ‘Hannah More / Barley Wood / - 1828’.

Michael Londry, Hilda Londry Collection

The upper cover of Nesbit’s Wild Roses, a slender booklet of her poetry, published by Raphael Tuck, London (n.d.), which until recently was not known to survive.

Michael Londry, Hilda Londry Collection

From a single-page letter by Caroline Norton, dated only to ‘Wednesday.’ Though not visible in this image, the place of writing, Storey’s Gate, Westminster, is given at the foot of the page. Norton moved to that area of London in 1827. The paper of the letter is watermarked 1834, which suggests the letter cannot have been written before that year.

Michael Londry, Hilda Londry Collection

Frontispiece of an exulted and heavily classicised Katherine (‘Orinda’) Philips as the new London Sappho, designed by Michael Vander Gucht, engraved by William Faithorne. Philips was praised by her contemporaries as “the Matchless Orinda”, the original name she adopted for herself in coterie poems to special women friends. The frontispiece image of Philips is entirely invented, not “from the life”; and its overtly sexualised image of Philips would never have been authorized by Philips, a standard of female propriety. (See Stafinbil, Restoration, Spring 2016; Mulvihill, “A Feminist Link in the Old Boys’ Network,” Curtain Calls, eds Schofield & Macheski, Ohio, 1991.)

Maureen E. Mulvihill, Mulvihill Collection

Frontispiece (mezzotint), of a stylish Letitia Pilkington by Nathaniel Hone after engraver Richard Purcell (NPG D40223), from her Memoirs (London: Routledge, rpt., 1928; modernized spelling). Her memoirs, three volumes, reached print in 1748-1754; her son, Jack, managed the posthumous publication of the final volume. She and her husband are often associated with the Dublin literary circle of Jonathan Swift, and Mrs Pilkington wrote one of the first biographies of Swift. Virginia Woolf praised her as a remarkable hybrid, something between Moll Flanders and Lady Ritchie, a rollicking woman of the town and a lady of breeding. (See Elias, Memoirs…Pilkington, Athens, GA.: University of Georgia Press, 1997; Clarke, Queen of the Wits, London: Faber & Faber, 2008.)

Maureen E. Mulvihill, Mulvihill Collection

Receipts are often among the least interesting manuscript survivals. This one from Jane Porter, however, has literary-historical content: ‘Recd March 31 - 1801 of Crosby & Letterman / Fifteen Pounds for the full Copyright / of my Book entituled Two Princes of Persia / and the Copper Plate / £15 - 0 0. Jane Porter.’ Fifteen pounds is five more than Jane Austen would get from Crosby two years later for Northanger Abbey, then called Susan.

Michael Londry, Hilda Londry Collection

The poem ‘To Lady Brooke’, attributed to ‘Mrs. Rowe’, as transcribed by Elizabeth Carter. The manuscript is annotated with a headnote: ‘The genuine Autograph of Mrs. Eliz[abe]th Carter, taken from her Scrap Book in my possession, Hannah Carter Smith. Octr. 1835.’ Lady Brooke was born Mary Thynne (c.1701/2-1720), and was a younger sister of the Countess of Hertford, a well-known correspondent of Carter’s. Hannah Carter Smith (d. 1879) was a travel writer, and Carter’s niece.

Michael Londry, Hilda Londry Collection