Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Elizabeth Singer Rowe
-
Standard Name: Rowe, Elizabeth Singer
Birth Name: Elizabeth Singer
Married Name: Elizabeth Rowe
Pseudonym: Philomela
Pseudonym: The Pindarick Lady
Pseudonym: The Pindarical Lady
Pseudonym: The Author of Friendship in Death
ESR
wrote witty, topical, satirical poetry during the 1690s, followed later in life by letters, essays, fiction (often epistolary), and a wide range of poetic modes, often though not invariably with a moral or religious emphasis. Her reputation as a moral and devotional writer during her lifetime and for some time afterwards stood extremely high. Current critical debate is establishing the element of proto-feminist or amatory fiction (what Paula Backscheider
calls experimental, subversive, and transgressive) in her prose against the didactic-devotional element.
Backscheider, Paula R. Elizabeth Singer Rowe and the Development of the English Novel. Johns Hopkins University Press.
AS
was said to have begun writing poetry at a very early age.
Steele, Anne. The Works of Mrs. Anne Steele. Munroe, Francis and Parker.
prelims
Her surviving works show the influence of Elizabeth Singer Rowe
, who shares her heightened devotional style in both verse and...
Intertextuality and Influence
Anne Francis
AF
writes in the style of mid-century poets Gray
and especially Collins
, whose names she specifically invokes and whose words she echoes, along with classics of the past like Petrarch
. She records an...
Intertextuality and Influence
Catherine Talbot
Her recent visit to the Duchess of Somerset
(formerly Lady Hertford, whose little grandson and great-nephew were the good and naughty boys of the story) had exposed her to the influence of Elizabeth Singer Rowe
Intertextuality and Influence
Charlotte McCarthy
Her Letters Moral and Entertaining seem written on the model of Elizabeth Singer Rowe
's Friendship in Death. One is from a departed Spirit, to his Friend in this World.
McCarthy, Charlotte. Justice and Reason. printed for the author.
202
Those to Clara...
Intertextuality and Influence
Adelaide O'Keeffe
This book might be regarded as a work of ancient Jewish history; it is also highly relevant to experiments in the possible reach of the historical novel back into ancient times. As a biblical paraphrase...
Intertextuality and Influence
Harriet Corp
The preface discusses what makes a religious novel. Corp suspects her work is not a novel because of its lack of a love-plot. But if she must be classed with novel-writers, she will submit with...
Intertextuality and Influence
Mary Deverell
The additional material keeps up the feminist interest. On Thanksgiving is headed by a quotation from Elizabeth Rowe
, and offers examples of thankfulness in female worthies of the Bible, like Deborah, Judith, Esther...
Friends, Associates
Penelope Aubin
It is not known that PA
had writing friends or moved in literary circles.
Though the Feminist Companion and other sources call her a friend of Elizabeth Singer Rowe
, this is based on a...
Friends, Associates
Anne Finch
AF
enjoyed personal friendships with a number of distinguished men, among them Bishop Thomas Ken
. She valued female friendship very highly; women friends figure prominently in her poetry. Lady Catherine Jones
, to whom...
Friends, Associates
Catherine Talbot
CT
met the widowed Duchess of Somerset (better known by her former title of Lady Hertford
), who had been a patron of Elizabeth (Singer) Rowe
, and was herself an amateur writer.
Myers, Sylvia Harcstark. The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship, and the Life of the Mind in Eighteenth-Century England. Clarendon.
215
Friends, Associates
Frances Seymour, Countess of Hertford
The young Frances Thynne grew up in a literary ambience. Her early friends included Frances Worsley, later Lady Carteret
(who apparently patronised women writers later, when her husband was Viceroy of Ireland). Family friends from...
Friends, Associates
Mary Chandler
MC
seems to have become the real friend of several women of higher rank than herself, some of whom moved from the position of her customers to that of her patrons: they included Lady Hertford
Friends, Associates
Frances Seymour, Countess of Hertford
Lady Hertford wrote that a certain distrust of her own judgement made her slow in the choice of a friend; but when that choice is made, my attachments are too strong to be easily broken...
Family and Intimate relationships
Elizabeth Graeme Ferguson
Her mother, born Ann Diggs, was stepdaughter of the first colonial governor of Pennsylvania. Ann died in 1765, and like Elizabeth Singer Rowe
(and Richardson
's Clarissa) she left posthumous letters for delivery after her death.
Garraty, John A., and Mark C. Carnes, editors. American National Biography. Oxford University Press.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
Family and Intimate relationships
Frances Seymour, Countess of Hertford
The writer Elizabeth Singer Rowe
was, says a recent commentator, like an honorary aunt to the young Frances Thynne.
Kennedy, Deborah. Poetic Sisters. Early Eighteenth-Century Women Poets. Bucknell University Press.
