Mary Delany

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Standard Name: Delany, Mary
Birth Name: Mary Granville
Married Name: Mary Pendarves
Married Name: Mary Delany
Pseudonym: Aspasia
Indexed Name: Mrs Delany
MD 's writing was unpublished in her lifetime during the eighteenth century, but letters, occasional poems, and other writings (a libretto, a romance) were as much part of her daily life as her art works. Little except her letters survives.
Portrait of Mary Delany, by John Opie, 1782. Her face and grey hair are enclosed by a white cap; she wears a dark cloak with a hood, white linen at her neckline, and a pendant.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Friends, Associates Mary Barber
MB was a close friend of Constantia Grierson . Her friendship with Jonathan Swift endured many vicissitudes; that with Laetitia Pilkington did not survive her apparently siding with Pilkington's husband when the couple fell out...
death Mary Barber
Earlier in 1755 her friend Mary Delany had written that Barber's husband drinks his claret, smokes his pipe, and cares not a pin for any of his family.
Stewart, Wendy. “The Poetical Trade of Favours: Swift, Mary Barber, and the Counterfeit Letters”. Lumen, Vol.
xviii
, pp. 155-74.
159
He is thought to have survived...
Occupation Frances Burney
Once FB had met the king and queen, through Mary Delany , her father expended much effort to secure her a court position. He thought of it as a triumph. She, on the other hand...
Occupation Frances Burney
FB betook herself, with a visit en route to Mary Delany , to begin her work as Keeper of the Robes to Queen Charlotte .
Doody, Margaret Anne. Frances Burney: The Life in the Works. Cambridge University Press.
171
Friends, Associates Frances Burney
Among those whom FB met through the Thrales' hospitable house at Streatham were members of the Bluestocking circle. Through Hester Chapone she met Mary Delany , and a real friendship developed despite the more than...
Publishing Elizabeth Carter
The book had gone to press in June 1757.
Feminist Companion Archive.
The original press run of 1,018 copies had to be supplemented with a further 250. First of several more editions was the Dublin one of the...
Literary responses Jane Cave
Schürer has noted that JC is unique in handling this material in print: nowhere else in eighteenth-century non-fictional texts does a respectable woman track her husband to a brothel or catch a venereal disease from...
Intertextuality and Influence Hester Mulso Chapone
HMC published A Letter to a New-Married Lady: a pamphlet-sized book on a subject suggested by Mary Delany .
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.
Wealth and Poverty Hester Mulso Chapone
She was left to comparative poverty; her uncle the bishop paid her an allowance of £20 a year. After her father's death in 1763 her financial situation somewhat improved. But when her uncle in turn...
Friends, Associates Sarah Chapone
In her teens Sarah Kirkham developed a close friendship with a girl of her own age, Mary Granville (later Delany) , who called her Sappho and described her like this. She had an uncommon genius...
Family and Intimate relationships Sarah Chapone
SC 's daughter Sally, to whom Mary Delany and her sister were both godparents, was probably born in spring 1731.
Wesley, John. The Works of John Wesley. Clarendon; Oxford University Press.
25: 280
Friends, Associates Sarah Chapone
SC 's friendship with John Wesley continued after her marriage, and included Wesley's brother Charles , Mary Pendarves (later Delany) , and Mary's sister Anne Granville , who stayed at her house for a week...
Textual Production Sarah Chapone
Both Mary Pendarves (later Mary Delany) and John Wesley had read this remarkable work in manuscript the previous year. (Wesley had been reading her writing with enjoyment since at least April 1733.)
Glover, Susan Paterson, and Sarah Chapone. “Introduction”. The Hardships of the English Laws, Routledge, pp. 1-16.
11
Both Pendarves
Textual Features Sarah Chapone
These concessions still leave her space for militancy. If the law exacts submission from wives it ought to exact fair treatment from husbands, or it goes further than the Bible allows. Those marriages where the...
Literary responses Sarah Chapone
Mary Delany , who read this work in manuscript, called it ingenious (in that word's old-fashioned meaning of learned or scholarly), but thought that the legal aspect still needed revision.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
The book received praise from...

Timeline

25 March 1738: The Irish harper, composer, and song-writer...

Writing climate item

25 March 1738

The Irish harper, composer, and song-writer Turlough Carolan (Toirdhealbhach Ó Cearbhalláin) , died.
McGuire, James, and James Quinn, editors. Dictionary of Irish Biography. http://dib.cambridge.org/.

November 1739: The anonymous, probably female Sophia published...

Women writers item

November 1739

The anonymous, probably female Sophia published a pamphlet entitled Woman not Inferior to Man.

February 1741: Mary Pendarves (later Delany) wrote of her...

Building item

February 1741

Mary Pendarves (later Delany) wrote of her friend the Duchess of Queensberry 's court dress representing botanically exact flowers of many species, with the banks and tree-stumps they grew on.

2 May 1742: Lady Euston, formerly Lady Dorothy Boyle,...

Building item

2 May 1742

Lady Euston , formerly Lady Dorothy Boyle , died of her husband's ill-treatment within seven months of her wedding.

13 September 1742: Frances Williams wrote a letter of pure anger...

Building item

13 September 1742

Frances Williams wrote a letter of pure anger to her husband , who had hinted that she must have infected him with venereal disease when it was actually the other way round.

23 November 1752: George Ballard dated his preface to Memoirs...

Women writers item

23 November 1752

George Ballard dated his preface to Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain . . . (better known as Memoirs of Eminent Ladies); it was published that year.

1872: US writer Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncy,...

Writing climate item

1872

US writer Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncy, or Chauncey, Woolsey) published her highly popular and influential story for girls entitled What Katy Did.
American National Biography. http://www.anb.org/articles/home.html.

Texts

Delany, Mary. A Catalogue of Plants Copyed from Nature in Paper Mosaick. Privately printed, 1778.
Delany, Mary. Flora Delanica. 1782.
Delany, Mary, and Sybil Connolly. Letters from Georgian Ireland. Editor Day, Angélique, Friar’s Bush Press, 1991.
Delany, Mary. Letters from Mrs. Delany (widow of Doctor Patrick Delany) to Mrs. Frances Hamilton. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1820.
Delany, Mary. Marianna. 1759, p. 75.
Delany, Mary. The Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs. Delany. Editor Augusta Hall, Baroness Llanover, R. Bentley, 1862.