Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
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Writer or writing
Author profile
Emily Faithfull
EF
, Victorian feminist, was a publisher before she was an author. After years of intermittent journalistic writing and editing, she published a novel and a travel book. She also became well-known as a lecturer.
1833: The Dower Act finally abolished the old system...
Building and people item
1833
The Dower Act finally abolished the old system (gradually eroding since the sixteenth century) which entitled a widow to life interest in a third of all property owned by her husband at any time during...
1676: Thomas D'Urfey's comedy Madam Fickle presented...
Writer or writing item
1676
Thomas D'Urfey
's comedy Madam Fickle presented as heroine a linguistic virtuoso, tricking and triumphing over an assortment of foolish and misogynist suitors.
Hughes, Derek. “The Masked Woman Revealed; or, the prostitute and the playwright in Aphra Behn criticism”. Women’s Writing, Vol.
7
, No. 2, 2000, pp. 149-64.
159
Writer or writing
Author profile
Dorothy Richardson
DR
was in her time, and remains, a singular novelist. Her fiction has never conformed to accepted categories, and still challenges literary critics. Her major work, the series of novels comprising Pilgrimage, is now...
21 January 1913: The first open-air meeting of the Malthusian...
Building and people item
21 January 1913
The first open-air meeting of the Malthusian League
was held in London.
Ledbetter, Rosanna. A History of the Malthusian League: 1877-1927. Ohio State University Press, 1976.
206
Writer or writing
Author profile
Jane Hume Clapperton
Jane Hume Clapperton
wrote several works of social theory in the late nineteenth century that combined her feminist ethos with her concern for the social problems facing contemporary England. She advanced a philosophy of social...
7-19 April 1760: The Society of Artists held its annual exhibition,...
Building and people item
7-19 April 1760
The Society of Artists
held its annual exhibition, by permission, in rooms belonging to the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.
Fleeman, John David, and James McLaverty. A Bibliography of the Works of Samuel Johnson. Clarendon Press, 2000, 2 vols.
2: 1002-3
Late 1931: At Leeds Assizes a High Court judge, Mr Justice...
Building and people item
Late 1931
At Leeds Assizes a High Court judge, Mr Justice McCardie
, expressed the view that the law of abortion should itself be amended.
Hall, Lesley. “Articulating abortion in interwar Britain”. Women’s History Magazine, No. 70, 1 Sept.–30 Nov. 2012, pp. 13-21.
15
1869: Pope Pius IX decreed that a foetus had a...
National or international item
1869
Pope Pius IX
decreed that a foetus had a soul from the time of conception.
Hordern, Anthony. Legal Abortion: The English Experience. Pergamon, 1971.
13
Trager, James. The Women’s Chronology: A Year-by-Year Record, from Prehistory to the Present. Henry Holt, 1994.
292
1897: The shilling Ladies' Monthly Magazine (started...
Writer or writing item
1897
The shilling Ladies' Monthly Magazine (started in 1852) ceased publication.
Palmegiano, Eugenia M. Women and British Periodicals, 1832-1867: A Bibliography. Garland, 1976.
10
Writer or writing
Author profile
Henrietta Camilla Jenkin
HCJ
was the author of eleven novels published over three and a half decades of the mid nineteenth century. They draw on her wide European and—perhaps most powerfully in her unflinching depiction of slavery—her Jamaican...
December 1463: In a letter to Sir William Plumpton, Bryan...
Building and people item
December 1463
In a letter to Sir William Plumpton, Bryan Roucliffe praised Margaret Plumpton
, aged four, for having nearly learned her psalter: that is, to say the psalms by heart.
Orme, Nicholas. From Childhood to Chivalry: The Education of the English Kings and Aristocracy, 1066-1530. Methuen, 1984.
158
Stapleton, Thomas. The Plumpton Correspondence. Printed for the Camden Society by J. B. Nichols and Son, 1839.
8
1455: Johann Gutenberg finished printing his 42-line...
Writer or writing item
1455
Johann Gutenberg
finished printing his 42-line Bible at Mainz in Germany.
Bozman, Ernest Franklin, editor. Everyman’s Encyclopaedia. 4th Edition, J. M. Dent, 1958, 12 vols.
6: 244
2 August 1858: The Local Government Office Act first attempted...
Building and people item
2 August 1858
The Local Government Office Act first attempted to standardize building regulations in the light of concerns over public health.
Rodger, Richard. Housing in Urban Britain, 1780-1914: Class, Capitalism and Construction. Macmillan, 1989.
49
The Statutes of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Printed by J. Bentham, 1762–2026.
Regulations designed to prevent or contain fires had been introduced in London after the Great...
Between 1930 and 1936: Michael Balcon, as Head of Production at...
Building and people item
Between 1930 and 1936
Michael Balcon
, as Head of Production at Gaumont British
and Gainsborough
film company, attempted to define a unique British quality in films, in order to protect the industry from Hollywood invasion.
Robinson, David. The History of World Cinema. Stein and Day, 1981.
198, 199
1 June 1711: From this day, by Act of Parliament, postal...
Writer or writing item
1 June 1711
From this day, by Act of Parliament
, postal services were established and regulated between London, Edinburgh, Dublin, New York, and the West Indies.
Chisholm, Hugh, editor. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Eleventh, Cambridge University Press, 1911.
22: 178
1806: An uneducated sailor in need of money published...
Building and people item
1806
An uneducated sailor in need of money published Admonition, a Poem on the Fashionable Modes of Female Dress, which claims to be deeply scandalised by the current revealing fashions.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
EG
, a highly prolific and popular twentieth-century romancenovelist, also wrote comedies of manners, and screenplays (mostly for silent films). The sexual candour of her novels shocked her Edwardian public: she became particularly known for...
1831: Andrew Combe's popular text on phrenology...
Building and people item
1831
Andrew Combe
's popular text on phrenology and insanity established this discipline as the leading science for theorizing madness.
Cooter, Roger. “Phrenology and British Alienists, ca. 1825-1845”. Madhouses, Mad-Doctors, and Madmen: The Social History of Psychiatry in the Victorian Era, edited by Andrew Scull, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981, pp. 58-104.
64
February 1845: The first issue of the British Quarterly...
Writer or writing item
February 1845
The first issue of the British Quarterly Review was published, edited by Robert Vaughan
.
Houghton, Walter E., and Jean Harris Slingerland, editors. The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900. University of Toronto Press, 1966–1989, 5 vols.
4: 122
Houghton, Walter E., and Jean Harris Slingerland, editors. The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900. University of Toronto Press, 1966–1989, 5 vols.
4: 114-16, 122
1 June 1912: Women suffragists, nationalists and trades...
National or international item
1 June 1912
Women suffragists, nationalists and trades unionists held a mass meeting in Dublin to insist that female suffrage be included in the Home Rule Bill; their demands were ignored by the Irish Parliamentary Party
.
Owens, Rosemary Cullen. Smashing Times: A History of the Irish Women’s Suffrage Movement 1889-1922. Attic, 1984.
51-3
Ward, Margaret. “’Suffrage First--Above All Else!’ An Account of the Irish Suffrage Movement”. Feminist Review, Vol.
10
, 1982, pp. 21-36.
27
1770 or 1771: Scottish painter George Romney did a portrait...
Building and people item
1770 or 1771
Scottish painter George Romney
did a portrait of English painter Mary Moser
which shows her using the medium of oils, mark of the professional rather than the amateur.
“Brilliant Women: 18th-Century Bluestockings”. National Portrait Gallery.
Writer or writing
Author profile
Hélène Cixous
HC
, a French writer and academic, is best known to English-speaking audiences as a literary critic associated with French feminism of the 1970s and 80s, and as proponent of écriture féminine. She herself...
