Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Queen Elizabeth I
-
Standard Name: Elizabeth I, Queen
Birth Name: Elizabeth Tudor
Royal Name: Elizabeth I
QEI
was a scholar by training and inclination (who wrote translations both as learning exercises and for recreation), as well as a writer in many genres and several languages. As monarch she wrote speeches, and all her life she wrote letters, poems, and prayers. (Some of these categories occasionally overlap.) Once her writing moved beyond the dutifulness of her youth, she had a pungent and forceful style both in prose and poetry.
With her Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth, published in two volumes, LA
launched her work in the particular style of history for which she is best known.
Quarterly Review. J. Murray.
18: 542
Textual Production
Eliza Haywood
For this she admitted to using fifteen or sixteen previous lives written in French. Part of her aim is to defend Mary against partisans of Queen Elizabeth
.
Spedding, Patrick. A Bibliography of Eliza Haywood. Pickering and Chatto.
233
Textual Production
Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan
She was working on the research for this novel before she married; the work was interrupted by her father's death in May 1812. After it she wrote: He was the object for which I laboured...
Textual Production
Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck
MAS
describes several very early writing projects. When her mother gave her a writing-case which locked, to ensure privacy, she spent hours in pouring out the effusions of my own bitter heart,
Schimmelpenninck, Mary Anne. Life of Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck. Editor Hankin, Christiana C., Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts.
1: 314
as...
Textual Production
Rosemary Sutcliff
RS
published her second book, The Queen Elizabeth
Story, through Oxford University Press
, which advertised it as summer reading for children and young people.
NL
published her first historical fiction: Here Was a Man: A Romantic History of Sir Walter
, His Voyages, His Discoveries, and His Queen.
Contemporary Authors: New Revision Series. Gale Research.
80
Textual Production
Josephine Tey
The play grew out of an argument with Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies
(Daviot's friend since they met on the set of Richard of Bordeaux) about Mary Stuart
's character. (At that time Daviot sided with Elizabeth of England
Textual Production
Ford Madox Ford
In this piece FMF
examines patterns in monarchical history to argue that it is profitable that a woman should occupy the highest place of the State.
Ford, Ford Madox, and Graham Greene. The Ford Madox Ford Reader. Editor Stang, Sondra J., Carcanet.
317
(The implication is that if a woman can...
Textual Production
Jan Morris
More than a decade later, in 1978, JM
followed her own portrait of Oxford by editing The Oxford Book of Oxford, a quirky anthology of often very short anecdotes and other excerpts, aimed less...
Textual Production
Marie-Catherine d' Aulnoy
MCA
made what seems to be her first appearance in English, with The Novels of Elizabeth Queen of England
, Containing the history of Queen Ann of Bullen (which represented a part of her Nouvelles...
Textual Production
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
For a young woman who had never attended university (as she of course could not at this time) to offer a translation from a classical language was both courageous and confident.
It was a long...
Textual Production
Jean Plaidy
The next year, 1955, saw the publication of JP
's Tudor novel Gay Lord Robert, about Elizabeth I
and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester
(whose title was initially Lord Robert, since he was...
Textual Production
Bryher
Bryher published six other historical novels: The Player's Boy (1953, reprinted by the Paris Press
of Ashfield, Massachusetts: set in the reign of Elizabeth
and featuring a boy who plays women's parts on stage),...
Textual Production
Dinah Mulock Craik
Dinah Mulock
published Elizabeth
and Victoria
: From a Woman's Point of View in the feminist Victoria Magazine.
Craik, Dinah Mulock. The Unkind Word and Other Stories. Hurst and Blackett.
68
Mitchell, Sally. Dinah Mulock Craik. Twayne.
134
Textual Production
Isa Craig
Annual Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science began to appear under IC
's editorship, including some of the earliest reports of women's public, modern political speech in Britain.