Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
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Standard Name: Devonshire, Georgiana Cavendish,,, Duchess of
Birth Name: Georgiana Spencer
Styled: Lady Georgiana Spencer
Married Name: Lady Georgiana Cavendish
Titled: Lady Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
Pseudonym: A Young Lady
Nickname: The Rat
An occasional or amateur author during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
, wrote in a number of genres: poetry, diaries, travel writings, letters, and possibly two novels. Much of her work remains unpublished and her canon, both in prose and poetry, is far from certain.
The Regent
made no complaint about ECK
at her dismissal, but it would appear that the dismissal was related to Princess Charlotte's decision that she would not marry a prince who seemed likely to subordinate...
Family and Intimate relationships
Lady Caroline Lamb
LCL
's mother, Henrietta Frances Ponsonby
, later Countess of Bessborough and known as Harriet, was the sister of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
, and, like her, a patron of women writers and of the...
Family and Intimate relationships
Lady Caroline Lamb
Her aunt the Duchess of Devonshire
(whose wealth, or rather that of her husband the duke, helped support Caroline's parents) wrote a new year poem for the little girl, instructing her to use her gift...
politics
Lady Caroline Lamb
Probably inspired by the example of her aunt the Duchess of Devonshire
, she wrote letters, canvassed in taverns, and exchanged kisses for votes. Being even more notorious already than her aunt, she had less...
Textual Features
Lady Caroline Lamb
The printed selection begins with girlhood letters to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
's elder daughter. It goes on to include correspondence with friends and publishers, analyses of feelings and comments on the experience of pregnancy...
Textual Features
Sarah Macnaughtan
In this novel a young woman named Hetty Du Cane goes for an autumn vacation with several others at a friend's house in the English countryside and meets several interesting people. Her love interest, Geoffrey...
Family and Intimate relationships
Margaret Bingham, Countess Lucan
MBCL
's daughter Lavinia
was born at Castlebar on 27 July 1762 and married the second Earl Spencer at her father's London house on 6 March 1781. Evidently, her mother-in-law Lady Bessborough
(sister of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
Occupation
Anna Miller
The day chosen was Friday, later switched to Thursday. The meetings took place in winter, the fashionable season at Bath, and upper-class visitors were eager to attend. Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire
visited during the first...
Textual Production
Jean Plaidy
The first-named is George I
's rejected queen
(accused of adultery and imprisoned for life before her husband came to the English throne, while her alleged lover
was assassinated). The protagonist of the second novel...
Friends, Associates
Maria Riddell
Angus Macnaghten voices the belief that MRhad few women friends (he excepts Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
) and that women were scared off by her erudition. He may, however, have been misled by women's...
Textual Features
Maria Riddell
MR
's own twenty poems include prefatory verses as editor, written for the occasion. She prints work by the late Henrietta O'Neill
(the well-known Ode to the Poppy), Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire
(St...
Dedications
Radagunda Roberts
Hawkesworth, in suggesting this translation, had observed that as a woman's work of truly delicate female type this novel needed a female translator. He then revised, corrected, and approved the manuscript, but mere chance prevented...
politics
Mary Robinson
MR
moved in radical literary circles; her friends were writers and intellectuals with a mission to change the world. She observes that of male servants the most loyal she found over the course of her...
Textual Production
Mary Robinson
She chose Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire
as patron, and sent her, with a mixture of timidity and hope . . . a neatly bound volume of my Poems.
Robinson, Mary. Perdita: The Memoirs of Mary Robinson. Editor Levy, Moses Joseph, Peter Owen.
80
The duchess responded with sensibility, and...
Dedications
Frances Arabella Rowden
She dedicated the work to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
(aunt of her pupil Lady Caroline Lamb
), who blooms the sweetest flow'r in Britain's isle.
Rowden, Frances Arabella. A Poetical Introduction to the Study of Botany. T. Bensley.
She explained its genesis in an advertisement (dated 23 May...
