Anna Letitia Barbauld

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Standard Name: Barbauld, Anna Letitia
Birth Name: Anna Letitia Aikin
Nickname: Nancy
Married Name: Anna Letitia Barbauld
Pseudonym: A Dissenter
Pseudonym: A Volunteer
Pseudonym: Bob Short
Used Form: Mrs Barbauld
Used Form: Anna Laetitia Barbauld
ALB , writing and publishing in the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century, was a true woman of letters, an important poet, revered as mouthpiece or laureate for Rational Dissent. Her ground-breaking work on literary, political, social, and other intellectual topics balances her still better-known pedagogical works and writings for the very young. During her lifetime an extraordinary revolution in public opinion made her vilified as markedly as she had been revered.
Coloured stipple engraving by John Chapman of Anna Letitia Barbauld, published in the Lady's Monthly Museum, 1 September 1798 (probably unauthorized and not from life). She is in profile, facing left, wearing a straw hat with pale pink ribbon, a white gauzy outer dress typical of the 1790's, and a dark cloak worn off her shoulders.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Friends, Associates Mary Wollstonecraft
Newington Green was a fortunate place for MW to have settled: it was a centre of intellectual Dissent. There she met the radical minister Richard Price , the poet Samuel Rogers , and the teacher...
Friends, Associates Mary Wollstonecraft
On her return to London MW sought out the publisher Joseph Johnson , of 72, St Paul's Churchyard, who became her patron, helper, and friend. He introduced her to Sarah Trimmer , Anna Letitia Barbauld
Textual Features Mary Wollstonecraft
Though only about twenty percent of its extracts are written by women (the same proportion as from the Bible),
McCarthy, William. Anna Letitia Barbauld, Voice of the Enlightenment. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
501
this book is feminist in its emphasis on the virtue of independent judgement as...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Elizabeth Pipe Wolferstan
Here she expounds her method of teaching her grandchildren [or step-grandchildren] through play, and features acute critical comment on female writers for children. In particular, she makes detailed, intelligent criticism of Maria Edgeworth 's children's...
politics Helen Maria Williams
HMW 's associate John Hurford Stone celebrated the new Republic at a British Club dinner party in Paris: Lord Edward Fitzgerald toasted radical writers (including Williams, Anna Letitia Barbauld , and Charlotte Smith ).
McCarthy, William. Anna Letitia Barbauld, Voice of the Enlightenment. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
284
Keen, Paul. “Review”. Eighteenth Century Fiction, Vol.
14
, No. 2, pp. 229-35.
234
Kelly, Gary. Women, Writing, and Revolution 1790-1827. Clarendon.
47
Friends, Associates Helen Maria Williams
That year HMW was introduced by Dr John Moore to Burns , with whom she then corresponded. She met Samuel Rogers (in November 1787), Hester Lynch Piozzi , and Sir Joshua Reynolds . The year...
Textual Production Helen Maria Williams
This volume also included work by Milton , Dryden , Addison , Pope , Carter , and Barbauld .
Duquette, Natasha Aleksiuk. Veiled Intent: Dissenting Women’s Approach to Biblical Interpretation. Pickwick Publications.
144
Textual Features Susanna Watts
Ephemera of all kinds have been bound in: family anecdotes, a letter of William Cowper of 1788, a Hindu Primer (or alphabet), a railway ticket of 1839, women's parliamentary petitions against slavery of 1833 (one...
Textual Production Sarah Trimmer
ST 's Little Spelling Book for Young Children (designed, she said, to teach the user enough to read Barbauld 's Lessons for Children) reached a second edition by August 1786. As a kind of...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Sarah Trimmer
This journal included essays on moral topics. It was important for taking children's literature seriously and publishing reviews of it. Critic Andrew O'Malley notes that the reviews contain a compendium of her views on education...
Literary responses Sarah Trimmer
ST 's work made a great impact. She was one of the twenty-four most-reviewed women writers of 1789-90.
Hawkins, Ann R., and Stephanie Eckroth, editors. Romantic Women Writers Reviewed. Vol. 3 vols., Ashgate Publishing Company.
The young Elizabeth Benger in her Female Geniad, 1791, called ST a successor to Dorothy, Lady Pakington
Author summary Sarah Trimmer
ST 's writing arose out of her work for two causes, religion and education, brought most closely together in her interest in Sunday schools. She edited magazines and was a pioneer both in animal stories...
Intertextuality and Influence Sarah Trimmer
Taking Barbauld as her acknowledged model, ST sets out to inculcate knowledge of and reverence for God's creation, by means of a heavily instructive maternal monologue, continued from one day to another without space for...
Intertextuality and Influence Ann Thicknesse
AT makes it clear she is no proto-feminist: If women are thought to possess minds less capable of solid reflection than men, they owe this conjecture entirely to their own vanity, and erroneous method of...
Textual Features Tabitha Tenney
Choice of women writers is fairly generous, with excerpts from Hester Mulso Chapone , John Aikin and Anna Letitia Barbauld (Evenings at Home), Susanna Haswell Rowson , Elizabeth Carter , Hester Thrale ,...

Timeline

August 1715: Isaac Watts published Divine Songs Attempted...

Writing climate item

August 1715

Isaac Watts published DivineSongs Attempted in Easy Language for the Use of Children.

18 June 1744: John Newbery advertised his Little Pretty...

Building item

18 June 1744

John Newbery advertised his Little Pretty Pocket Book, one of the first books aimed at delighting children while instructing them.

1762-December 1772: Under the auspices of the third Duke of Bridgewater,...

Building item

1762-December 1772

Under the auspices of the third Duke of Bridgewater , a canal was built connecting Manchester with Liverpool (about 56 miles).

8 May 1769: The independence struggle of Corsica against...

National or international item

8 May 1769

The independence struggle of Corsica against the Republic of Genoa ended in defeat by the French at Pontenuovo.

July 1773: The Westminster Magazine printed, along with...

Building item

July 1773

The Westminster Magazine printed, along with its account of Oxford University 's annual degree-giving, an article by L. P.On the Propriety of Bestowing Academical Honours on the Ladies.

April 1774: The Monthly Review, in a notice on Hannah...

Women writers item

April 1774

The Monthly Review, in a notice on Hannah More 's The Inflexible Captive, quoted some lines which transform the Muses from ancient Greece into the living female poets of Britain.

1777: Richard Samuel engraved his Nine Living Muses...

Women writers item

1777

Richard Samuel engraved his Nine Living Muses of Great Britain (or Portraits in the Character of the Muses in the Temple of Apollo) for Johnson's Ladies New and Polite Pocket Memorandum for 1778...

January 1781-December 1782: The Lady's Poetical Magazine, or Beauties...

Writing climate item

January 1781-December 1782

The Lady's Poetical Magazine, or Beauties of British Poetry appeared, published by James Harrison in four half-yearly numbers; it is arguable whether or not it kept the first number's promise of generous selections of work...

1785: Dialogues Concerning the Ladies, a celebration...

Women writers item

1785

Dialogues Concerning the Ladies, a celebration of famous women, was anonymously published; it borrows from Ballard 's Memoirs of Eminent Ladies.

April 1789: The Gentleman's Magazine published Anna Seward's...

Women writers item

April 1789

The Gentleman's Magazine published Anna Seward 's selection of living celebrated Female Poets.

2 March 1790: Charles James Fox proposed in the House of...

Building item

2 March 1790

Charles James Fox proposed in the House of Commons the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts (instruments of discrimination against Dissenters ). Next day his motion was voted down (its third rejection in four years).

Late 1790: William Holland published a print of Burke...

National or international item

Late 1790

William Holland published a print of Burke running the gauntlet of enemies with whips: women as well as men.

1791: Gilbert Wakefield published An Enquiry into...

Building item

1791

Gilbert Wakefield published An Enquiry into the Expediency and Propriety of Public or Social Worship, whose arguments were challenged in different ways by Anna Letitia Barbauld and Mary Hays .

19 April 1791: Wilberforce's motion to abolish the slave-trade...

National or international item

19 April 1791

Wilberforce 's motion to abolish the slave-trade (put on 18 April) was defeated in the House of Commons .

14 June 1792: The title of radical novelist Robert Bage's...

Writing climate item

14 June 1792

The title of radical novelist Robert Bage 's anonymous Man As He Is, published this day, suggests the unpalatable truths revealed by reformers or satirists; it influenced later titles chosen by William Godwin and others.

Texts

Barbauld, Anna Letitia. A Legacy for Young Ladies. Editor Aikin, Lucy, Longman, 1826.
Barbauld, Anna Letitia. An Address to the Opposers of the Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. J. Johnson, 1790.
Barbauld, Anna Letitia. Anna Letitia Barbauld : Selected Poetry and Prose. Editors McCarthy, William and Elizabeth Kraft, Broadview, 2001.
Barbauld, Anna Letitia. Civic Sermons to the People. J. Johnson, 1792.
Barbauld, Anna Letitia. Devotional Pieces. J. Johnson, 1775.
Barbauld, Anna Letitia. Eighteen Hundred and Eleven. J. Johnson, 1812.
Barbauld, Anna Letitia. Epistle to William Wilberforce, Esq. J. Johnson, 1791.
Barbauld, Anna Letitia, and John Aikin. Evenings at Home. J. Johnson, 1796.
Barbauld, Anna Letitia. Hymns in Prose for Children. J. Johnson, 1781.
McCarthy, William et al. “Introduction”. The Poems of Anna Letitia Barbauld, University of Georgia Press, 1994, p. xxi - xlvi.
Barbauld, Anna Letitia. Lessons for Children, from Three to Four Years Old. Joseph Johnson, 1779.
Barbauld, Anna Letitia. Lessons for Children, of Three Years Old. Joseph Johnson, 1778.
Barbauld, Anna Letitia. Lessons for Children, of Two to Three Years Old. Joseph Johnson, 1778.
Edgeworth, Maria et al. Letters of Maria Edgeworth and Anna Letitia Barbauld. Editor Scott, Walter Sidney, Golden Cockerel Press, 1953.
Barbauld, Anna Letitia. “Memoir”. The Works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld, edited by Lucy Aikin, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1825, p. 1: v - lxix.
Barbauld, Anna Letitia, and John Aikin. Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose. J. Johnson, 1773.
Barbauld, Anna Letitia. Poems. J. Johnson, 1773.
Barbauld, Anna Letitia. Reasons for National Penitence. 1794.
Barbauld, Anna Letitia. Remarks on . . . the Expediency and Propriety of Public or Social Worship. J. Johnson, 1792.
Barbauld, Anna Letitia, editor. Selections from the Spectator, Tatler, Guardian and Freeholder. J. Johnson, 1804.
Barbauld, Anna Letitia. Sins of Government, Sins of the Nation. J. Johnson, 1793.
Barbauld, Anna Letitia, editor. The British Novelists. Rivington, 1810.
Richardson, Samuel. The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson. Editor Barbauld, Anna Letitia, Richard Phillips, 1804.
Barbauld, Anna Letitia, editor. The Female Speaker. J. Johnson, 1811.
Collins, William. The Poetical Works of William Collins. Editor Barbauld, Anna Letitia, T. Cadell, jun. and W. Davies, 1797.