Hannah More

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Standard Name: More, Hannah
Birth Name: Hannah More
Nickname: Nine
Pseudonym: A Young Lady
Pseudonym: The Author of Percy
Pseudonym: H. M.
Pseudonym: Will Chip, a Carpenter
During her long and phenomenally productive career HM wrote plays, poems, a single novel and much social, religious, and political commentary. She was the leading conservative and Christian moralist of her day. Her political opinions were reactionary, and her passionate commitment to educating the poor and lessening their destitution has been judged as marred by its paternalist tone. But she was a pioneer educator and philanthropist, with enormous influence on the Victorian age.
Orlando gratefully acknowledges help with this document from Mary Waldron. Any flaws or errors are, of course, not hers.
Photograph of a painting of Hannah More by Henry William Pickersgill, 1822. She is seated on a red-upholstered chair beside a little table draped in red fabric and bearing a quill pen, inkwell, and piece of paper. She wears a blue-green mantle with V neck and creamy fabric at the cuffs and neckline, finished with a ruff around her neck. She has a gold shawl and a cap topped with pale blue ribbons. More wrote that she was "condemned, sorely against her will," to sit for this portrait. The version here, in th
Print of Barley Wood, Hannah More's home for almost thirty years. The print's grey tones depict a wooded countryside with some of Barley Wood's twenty acres. One of two female figures in the mid-ground is pointing towards the house.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Pipe Wolferstan
A few statements are footnoted to their originators, whom EPW has either paraphrased or versified: Sherlock and Lavater are her favourites, but she also draws on lighter writers like Horace , Swift , and Coleridge
Intertextuality and Influence Harriette Wilson
The book itself opens with an image presenting HW 's writing as showmanship: Lions and Tigers just arrived for the coronation. Walk in ladies and gentlemen. . . . Only six francs, to see all...
Literary responses Helen Maria Williams
It talked of the need to counter her poisonous false philosophy with antidotes from the writings of a More , a Hamilton , and a West .
Michael-Johnston, Georgina. Helen Maria Williams: Liberty, Sensibility, and Education. University of Alberta.
140
Friends, Associates Anna Williams
Williams enjoyed cordial relations with other members of Johnson's circle, like Elizabeth Carter (who helped with subscriptions for Williams's book when Johnson was dragging his feet) and Hester Thrale (who contributed). Carter counted her a...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Helena Wells
The body of her work takes up her favourite topic: the difficulties of women as wage-earners—difficulties which impede the progress of my own sex to independence—and what should be done to solve them...
Textual Features Susanna Watts
The many pictures in the volume include diagrams of the hold of a slave ship, I & Dash my Dog (a sketch), and prints of Hester Mulso Chapone , Lady Rachel Russell (with a copy...
Publishing Lucy Walford
LW 's lives of Jane Taylor , Elizabeth Fry , Hannah More , and Mary Somerville , each originally printed in Blackwood's Magazine, appeared together as Four Biographies from Blackwood in Edinburgh and London.
OCLC WorldCat. http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.
Textual Features Priscilla Wakefield
PW welcomes the way that Adam Smith and other Scottish Enlightenment writers have made womanhood a branch of philosophy, not a little interesting.
O’Brien, Karen. Women and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Cambridge University Press.
106
Unlike Wollstonecraft , she sees women's sphere as naturally limited and...
Occupation Sarah Tytler
As regards the typical feminine curriculum, ST resented the tradition of mandatory music teaching—of the piano—to young women, and the slight to other branches of education in the extravagant favour shown to one branch.
Tytler, Sarah. Three Generations. J. Murray.
235-6
Literary responses Charlotte Maria Tucker
Marshall's prediction proved true: CMT 's audience disappeared as the Victorian age ended. However, the Dictionary of Literary Biography acknowledges that her successful introduction of imaginative richness into didactic literature influenced other authors and established...
Friends, Associates Sarah Trimmer
She corresponded with Jane West , Elizabeth Carter , and Hannah More .
Todd, Janet, editor. Dictionary of British Women Writers. Routledge.
under West
Balfour, Clara. A Sketch of Mrs. Trimmer. W. and F. G. Cash.
Publishing Sarah Trimmer
It was probably in 1785 that ST published her first set of prints: that is, engraved plates for educational purposes. Her first topic was English history, and the book of prints had a companion volume,...
Textual Production Sarah Trimmer
The option of bulk purchase as a valuable present to the poor, and to young people in general,
O’Malley, Andrew. “The Coach and Six: Chapbook Residue in Late Eighteenth-Century Children’s Literature”. The Lion and The Unicorn, Vol.
24
, pp. 18-44.
42n25
indicates that she, like Hannah More after her, hoped to improve the labouring classes through the...
Literary responses Sarah Trimmer
The Critical Review gave this work a warm welcome.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
66 (1788): 74-5
The British Critic praised the 1801 edition in a lengthy review, and said there was no woman except Hannah More doing such sterling...
Textual Production Sarah Trimmer
From the second number it bore ST 's name. Hannah More came up with the idea for her Cheap Repository Tracts after two issues of Trimmer's magazine. If it was a model for her, she...

Timeline

15 July 1819: Byron began to publish in instalments (opening...

Writing climate item

15 July 1819

Byron began to publish in instalments (opening with cantos one and two) his satiricalmock-epicpoemDon Juan; he left it unfinished at his death.

1861: A company in Salem, Massachusetts, issued...

Writing climate item

1861

A company in Salem, Massachusetts, issued what seems to be the earliest version of a game called Authors, whose object was to collect sets of cards bearing the names of writers and the...

April 1879: James Murray—editor since 1 March of what...

Writing climate item

April 1879

James Murray —editor since 1 March of what was to become the Oxford English Dictionary—issued an Appeal for readers to supply illustrative quotations.

By 18 August 1888: Lucy Walford published Four Biographies from...

Women writers item

By 18 August 1888

Lucy Walford published Four Biographies from Blackwood's.

14 October 1902: St Deiniol's Library, situated near Hawarden...

Building item

14 October 1902

St Deiniol's Library , situated near Hawarden Castle under the Welsh mountains, founded by William Ewart Gladstone to bring together readers who lacked books, was officially opened.

Texts

More, Hannah. The Inflexible Captive. S. Farley, 1774.
More, Hannah. The Literary Manuscripts and Letters of Hannah More. Editor Smith, Nicholas D., Ashgate, 2008.
More, Hannah. The Spirit of Prayer. T. Cadell, 1825.
More, Hannah. The Village Disputants. J. Hatchard, 1817.
More, Hannah. The Works of Hannah More. T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1801.
More, Hannah. Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to general Society. T. Cadell, 1788.
More, Hannah. Village Politics. F. and C. Rivington, 1793.
More, Hannah, and William Roberts. Works. H. Fisher, R. Fisher, and P. Jackson, 1834.