Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Samuel Johnson
-
Standard Name: Johnson, Samuel
Used Form: Dr Johnson
Arriving in eighteenth-century London as one more young literary hopeful from the provinces, SJ
achieved such a name for himself as an arbiter of poetry, of morality (through his Rambler and other periodical essays and his prose fiction Rasselas), of the language (the Dictionary), and of the literary canon (his edition of Shakespeare
and the Lives of the English Poets) that literary history has often typecast him as hidebound and authoritarian. This idea has been facilitated by his ill-mannered conversational dominance in his late years and by the portrait of him drawn by the hero-worshipping Boswell
. In fact he was remarkable for his era in seeing literature as a career open to the talented without regard to gender. From his early-established friendships with Elizabeth Carter
and Charlotte Lennox
to his mentorship of Hester Thrale
, Frances Burney
, and (albeit less concentratedly) of Mary Wollstonecraft
and Henrietta Battier
, it was seldom that he crossed the path of a woman writer without friendly and relatively egalitarian encouragement.
Several women writers and public figures played very important roles in Yeats's life. Lady Gregory
(whom he first met in London in 1894 and whose close friend he became in 1896) played a crucial role...
Visitors to her parents' house included Oliver Goldsmith
and Samuel Johnson
, whom the Hawkins children nicknamed Polyphemus, after the one-eyed giant in the Odyssey.
Hawkins, Laetitia-Matilda. Memoirs, Anecdotes, Facts and Opinions. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, and C. and J. Rivington.
1: 86
After Johnson's death, John Hawkins was...
Friends, Associates
Mary Deverell
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography notes both that MD
received patronage from Bristol heiress Ann Lovell Gwatkin
, and that Hannah More
emphatically did not take to her, though their paths must repeatedly have...
Friends, Associates
Frances Brooke
Before departing for Québec to join her husband
, FB
attended a farewell party with Samuel Johnson
and other literary friends.
McMullen, Lorraine. An Odd Attempt in a Woman: The Literary Life of Frances Brooke. University of British Columbia Press.
69
Friends, Associates
Charlotte Lennox
CL
won the enduring friendship of Samuel Johnson
and Samuel Richardson
. (With Johnson she quarrelled at least once, and he took pains to heal the breach.) She introduced Giuseppe Baretti
to Johnson, and had...
Friends, Associates
Frances Brooke
FB
's friendship with Woffington led to her meeting Peg's sister Polly
, who became her lifelong friend. Eight years older than Brooke, Polly Woffington was a close friend of Samuel Johnson
, Sir Joshua Reynolds
Friends, Associates
Margaret Bingham, Countess Lucan
She was a well-known figure in London cultural circles, particularly that of the Bluestockings. Charles Burney
called her at-home evenings blue conversazioni's and Horace Walpole
called them quite Mazarine-blue. Others specifically mentioned in...
Friends, Associates
Frances Reynolds
FR
became a good friend of Samuel Johnson
, who by late 1764 was writing to her as My Dearest Dear.
Johnson, Samuel. The Letters of Samuel Johnson. Editor Redford, Bruce, Princeton University Press.
1: 246
He also distinguished her with a nickname, Renny. One of...
Friends, Associates
Frances Brooke
FB
knew Samuel Johnson
well by 1755, before the days of his greatest fame. According to family legend, she and her sister were the ladies whom he teased because they had noticed his omission of...
Friends, Associates
Hester Lynch Piozzi
Hester Thrale (later HLP
) and her first husband
met Samuel Johnson
for the first time.
Johnson recorded this as 9 January, though HLP
later remembered it as the 10th.
Clifford, James L. Hester Lynch Piozzi (Mrs Thrale). Clarendon Press.
55n1
Clifford, James L. Hester Lynch Piozzi (Mrs Thrale). Clarendon Press.
54-5
Friends, Associates
Anna Williams
AW
's father knew many of the leading figures in the science of his day, and she probably met them through him. Her celebrated friendship with Samuel Johnson
seems to have begun through his interest...
Friends, Associates
Anna Seward
Acquainted with Hester Piozzi
(and an admirer of her wit),
Seward, Anna. Letters of Anna Seward. Editor Constable, Archibald, Vol.
6 vols.
, A. Constable.
2: 102
AS
was long but less warmly acquainted with Johnson
. She accused him both of malice (repeatedly) and of liking only worshippers...
Friends, Associates
Lady Anne Barnard
Lady Anne lived much of her life in fashionable society, and her acquaintance was very wide. In Edinburgh in her early twenties she impressed and delighted Samuel Johnson
with an impromptu and complimentary bon mot...