Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Lady Eleanor Butler
-
Standard Name: Butler, Lady Eleanor
Birth Name: Eleanor Butler
Styled: Lady Eleanor Butler
One of the two renowned Ladies of Llangollen, LEB
produced life-writing (diaries, letters, and some poems) during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, which structured, recorded, and celebrated their shared way of life. Today the writing of her partner, Sarah Ponsonby
, is also receiving attention.
Lady Eleanor Butler
and Sarah Ponsonby
, the ladies of Llangollen, meticulously transcribed the whole of ALF
's Memoirs (dating from May 1676) as a present for a friend.
Mavor, Elizabeth. The Ladies of Llangollen. Penguin.
62
Textual Features
Natalie Clifford Barney
In L'amour défenduNCB
defends the proposition that only love is important, not the sex to whom it is directed.
Barney, Natalie Clifford, and Karla Jay. A Perilous Advantage: The Best of Natalie Clifford Barney. Translator Anna Livia, New Victoria Publishers.
85
She argues that every person possesses both masculine and feminine principles: We should not...
EMB
's fourteen books, published between 1910 and 1931, are mostly novels, and most of them appeared under the pseudonym of John Travers. She is remembered, if at all, for those set in British...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Eva Mary Bell
EMB
's foreword and her comment on her material is brief. She makes skilful use of letters and diaries, not only those of this famous pair but of their friends and supporters Mrs Lucy Goddard
Family and Intimate relationships
Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger
Among EOB
's literary friends, Elizabeth Hamilton
was special. When Benger mentions Hamilton's delight in fostering unprotected talent, especially female talent, she is probably thinking of her own. She prints letters which are almost certainly...
Friends, Associates
Mary Matilda Betham
As well as meeting at Llangollen with Lady Eleanor Butler
and Sarah Ponsonby
(who later talked with high praise of her),
Betham, Ernest, editor. A House of Letters. Jarrold and Sons.
69, 70
MMB
acquired a wide acquaintance in London. She became a close friend...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Mary Matilda Betham
Here already MMB
evinces her interest in women's literary history: her topics include praise for writers including Ann Radcliffe
and the Ladies of Llangollen (Lady Eleanor Butler
and Sarah Ponsonby
). One of the...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
E. Owens Blackburne
EOB
's preface also singles out what she claims to be an original account of the true
Blackburne, E. Owens. Illustrious Irishwomen. Tinsley Brothers.
I: viii
history of the Ladies of Llangollen, Lady Eleanor Butler
and Sarah Ponsonby
. While she...
Reception
E. Owens Blackburne
In the same preface EOB
promises to include some previously unpublished poems by William Wordsworth
, apparently in connection with the Ladies of Llangollen. Between the publication of the two volumes, however, Wordsworth's son forbade...
Travel
Henrietta Maria Bowdler
HMB
rented a cottage in the village of Llangollen in Denbighshire, to be near her friends Lady Eleanor Butler
and Sarah Ponsonby
.
Mavor, Elizabeth. The Ladies of Llangollen. Penguin.
131
Friends, Associates
Henrietta Maria Bowdler
Frances Burney
preferred HMB
, as more kind and gentle, to her sister Frances Bowdler. Burney amusingly records a visit by herself, HMB and others, to Lady Miller
of Batheaston on 8 June 1780, when...
Family and Intimate relationships
Henrietta Maria Bowdler
Elizabeth Mavor
, biographer of Butler
and Ponsonby
, classes as romantic attachments HMB
's friendships with both of them, with Smith
, and with Margaret Davies
. Bowdler was, says Mavor, inclined to adopt...
Travel
Mary Brunton
On this occasion they went to the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth, and Brighton (the consummation of deformity).
Brunton, Mary. Emmeline. Manners and Miller; John Murray.
139
Leaving London without intention of returning, on 25 July 1815, she demanded rhetorically:...
Travel
Sarah Harriet Burney
A high point in this job was a tour in late autumn 1805, from her employers' country seat (Delamere Lodge, near Northwich, Cheshire) through Wales. A high point in the tour was...
Timeline
1782: George Romney painted a picture to illustrate...
1 April 1789: Hester Lynch Piozzi (a propos reports about...
Building item
1 April 1789
Hester Lynch Piozzi
(a propos reports about Marie Antoinette
) indignantly recorded what she presents as if it was her first encounter with lesbianism.
March 1908: Mary Louisa Gordon, who had qualified as...
Building item
March 1908
Mary Louisa Gordon
, who had qualified as both a physician and a midwife and had practised medicine in London since 1900, was appointed the first female prison inspector in Britain.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Texts
Butler, Lady Eleanor et al. “Foreword and Editorial Materials”. The Hamwood Papers of the Ladies of Llangollen and Caroline Hamilton, edited by Eva Mary Bell, Macmillan, 1930, p. vii - viii; various pages.
Butler, Lady Eleanor, and Sarah Ponsonby. Life with the Ladies of Llangollen. Editor Mavor, Elizabeth, Viking, 1984.
Butler, Lady Eleanor et al. The Hamwood Papers of the Ladies of Llangollen and Caroline Hamilton. Editor Bell, Eva Mary, Macmillan, 1930.
