Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Mary Delany
-
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's writing was unpublished in her lifetime during the eighteenth century, but letters, occasional poems, and other writings (a libretto, a romance) were as much part of her daily life as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.
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
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...
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...
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...
Literary responses
Sarah Chapone
Mary Delany
said SCwould shine in an assembly composed of Tully
s, Homer
s, and Milton
s.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Though Homer and Cicero are connected chiefly with oral texts, the inclusion of Milton suggests that Delany...
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...
Timeline
25 March 1738: The Irish harper, composer, and song-writer...
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,...
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.