Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Marie de Sévigné
-
Standard Name: Sévigné, Marie de
Birth Name: Marie de Rabutin-Chantal
Married Name: Marie de Sévigné
Titled: Marie, marquise de Sévigné
Used Form: Marie de Sevigne
MS
, who lived and wrote in seventeenth-century France, is widely regarded as one of the world's great letter-writers. The standard scholarly edition contains 1,372 letters.
Their move back to England was facilitated by a legacy of £5,000 from Anne's father.
Heath-Caldwell, J. J. “Letters, References and Notes (1780-1874), Relating to James Caldwell and Anne Marsh (Marsh-Caldwell)”. Ancestors and Relatives of JJ Heath-Caldwell.
1839-1842
They bought the estate the previous year for £13,000 (including standing timber worth £3,280). AM
sold the house, estate...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Mary Deverell
The second volume opens with poems on On Heroism in Female Virtue and On the Friendship between two Ladies. MD
praises Elizabeth Montagu
, Marie de Sévigné
, Anne Bacon
, and others, some...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Anne Grant
She likes her reading to be strenuous: she recommends Jane Austen
's Mansfield Park as light reading,
Grant, Anne. Memoir and Correspondence of Mrs. Grant of Laggan. Editor Grant, John Peter, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans.
About the first twenty pages are occupied by MT
's early reminiscences, probably written not long after her first husband's death: she frankly recorded her emotional disturbance over that event.
Trench, Melesina. The Remains of the Late Mrs. Richard Trench. Editor Trench, Richard Chenevix, Parker and Bourn.
She backs this pleasure in modernity with a remarkable grasp of former female history and of the women's literary tradition in English and its contexts. She mentions the Greek foremother Sappho
, the patriotic heroism...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Julia Pardoe
JP
did not aim to provide a record of the Sun King's public life for statesmen and politicians; she hoped instead to depict his private humanity as it was portrayed in the personal memoirs of...
Textual Production
A. Mary F. Robinson
In 1914 she produced, in French and again using her married name, Madame Duclaux, an edition entitled Mme. de Sévigné
, textes. Years later, in 1927, she contributed the introduction to another edition...
Textual Production
Catherine Fanshawe
The letters that CF
sent to Anne Grant
are not extant, but Grant's side of the correspondence leaves no doubt that the two were in constant dialogue about new books they had read, and their...
Textual Production
Melesina Trench
In September 1811 MT
was intending to publish the letters exchanged between Edward Tighe
(who had written on Irish social issues) and Mansergh St George
. She had drafted a preface but made no further...
Textual Production
Elizabeth Grant
She also admitted a hope that, if published, the journal might turn a profit for her children, but felt ambivalent about becoming a published author.
Grant, Elizabeth. “Introduction”. The Highland Lady in Ireland, edited by Andrew Tod, Canongate, p. vii - xiii.
Butler, Lady Eleanor et al. “Foreword and Editorial Materials”. The Hamwood Papers of the Ladies of Llangollen and Caroline Hamilton, edited by Eva Mary Bell, Macmillan, p. vii - viii; various pages.
ATR
published one of her favourite works, a biography of Madame de Sévigné.
Callow, Steven D. “A Biographical Sketch of Lady Anne Thackeray Ritchie”. Virginia Woolf Quarterly, Vol.
2
, pp. 285-7.
290
Timeline
1671: Madame de Sévigné of France first brought...
Building item
1671
Madame de Sévigné
of France first brought the sheath (condom) to public attention by writing disparagingly of it.
1758: Pierre-Joseph Boudier de Villemert published,...
Writing climate item
1758
Pierre-Joseph Boudier de Villemert
published, allegedly at Hamburg, a book called L'Ami des femmes, which remarked on the number and excellence of women writers in French.
By Christmas 1869: Francis Galton, mathematician, scientist,...
Writing climate item
By Christmas 1869
Francis Galton
, mathematician, scientist, and eugenicist, published Hereditary Genius: An Enquiry into its Laws and Consequences,
Texts
Sévigné, Marie de. Correspondance. Editor Duchêne, Roger, Gallimard, 1972.
Roger de Rabutin, comte de Bussy, and Marie de Sévigné. Les mémoires de messire Roger de Rabutin, comte de Bussy. J. Anisson, 1696.
Sévigné, Marie de. Letters of Madame de Rabutin Chantal, Marchioness de Sevigné, to the Comtess de Grignan, her daughter. N. Blandford, 1727.
Sévigné, Marie de. Letters of Madame de Sévigné to her Daughter and her Friends. Editor Aldington, Richard, George Routledge, 1927.