Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Alexander Pope
-
Standard Name: Pope, Alexander
As well as being a translator, critic, and letter-writer, AP
was the major poetic voice of the earlier eighteenth century, an influence on almost everyone who wrote poetry during his lifetime or for some years afterwards.
LA
's preface denies the absurd notion that absolute gender equality might be feasible and advises women not to attempt to become inferior men. But she asserts, there is not an endowment, or propensity, or...
Intertextuality and Influence
Anna Atkins
She gives her chapters epigraphs, many of them eighteenth-century: the Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, quoted in French on the title-page and to open volume three; Molière
and Pope
's Rape of the Lock...
Family and Intimate relationships
Penelope Aubin
If Sir Richard Temple was indeed PA
's father, then she was the unacknowledged half-sister of Richard Temple, Viscount Cobham
, famous as an Opposition politician, landscape gardener, and patron of Alexander Pope
: a...
Intertextuality and Influence
Penelope Aubin
PA
's preface attacks the abominable Writings of the freethinker John Toland
Welham, Debbie. “The Political Afterlife of Resentment in Penelope Aubin’s <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>The Life and Amorous Adventures of Lucinda</span> (1721)”. Women’s Writing, Vol.
20
, No. 1, pp. 49-63.
52
and promises: If this Trifle sells you may be sure to hear of me again.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
It asserts her claim that she writes...
Textual Production
Anna Letitia Barbauld
ALB
published her longest poem, a controversial and important analysis of the current state of the nation, of recent history, politics, and war: Eighteen Hundred and Eleven.
As precedent for titling a poem about...
Textual Production
Anna Letitia Barbauld
ALB
's niece
wrote of her (with an echo of Pope
on himself) that while yet a child, she was surprised to find herself a poet.
McCarthy, William et al. “Introduction”. The Poems of Anna Letitia Barbauld, University of Georgia Press, p. xxi - xlvi.
This extended essay is excellent on Pope
as well as on Akenside.
Publishing
Mary Barber
He concluded, let Mrs Howard
know that I recommend you to the Queen
,
Stewart, Wendy. “The Poetical Trade of Favours: Swift, Mary Barber, and the Counterfeit Letters”. Lumen, Vol.
xviii
, pp. 155-74.
170
though he declined to supply a direct introduction to a potential royal patron. Two months later Gay
wrote to Swift...
Publishing
Mary Barber
This month Barber's teenage son Rupert was on duty all day to dispense copies to subscribers, at the painter's house in Covent Garden where he was a student or apprentice.
Stewart, Wendy. “The Poetical Trade of Favours: Swift, Mary Barber, and the Counterfeit Letters”. Lumen, Vol.
xviii
, pp. 155-74.
172n13
The true publication date...
Textual Production
Maria Barrell
This was Printed for the Author, with a quotation from Prior
on the title-page.
Barrell, Maria. Reveries du Coeur. Dodsley, Walter, Owen, and Yeats.
prelims
The running head throughout the volume uses a different title: Poems on Various and Select Occasions. The volume...
Textual Production
Amelia Beauclerc
It is in four volumes, with a title-page quotation from Pope
about how a work cannot be faultless.
Education
Sybille Bedford
The idea had been that Jack and Suzan Robbins should select a boarding school for Sibylle and have her to stay for the holidays. Instead, with the money provided by her family and trustees, they...
Reception
Aphra Behn
Alexander Pope
used a poem by AB
, The Golden Age, in his Peri Bathous; or, The Art of Sinking in Poetry, as an example of the despised Florid Style. To sharpen his...
Health
Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger
Aikin also applied to Benger a phrase first used of the seriously disabled and pain-wracked Alexander Pope
, saying the infirmity of her constitution rendered her life a long disease.
The Monthly Repository. Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme.
1 n.s., 1827.127
Textual Features
Elizabeth Bentley
The poems appear in chronological order, written over the years since 1785, with a bumper year in 1789. EB
writes in various modes, using on the whole conventional and old-fashioned style and sentiment in each...
Timeline
2 May 1709: Poetical Miscellanies. The Sixth Part was...
Writing climate item
2 May 1709
Poetical Miscellanies. The Sixth Part was published, including Pope
's Pastorals and poems by Anne Finch
(which are placed between work by Pope and Swift
).
28 February 1712: The Whig physician-poet Sir Richard Blackmore...
Writing climate item
28 February 1712
The Whig physician-poet Sir Richard Blackmore
published his best-known work, the physico-theologicalCreation: a Philosophical Poem. Its grandiose style was praised by some respected critics of the day, but scorned by Pope
and his Tory friends.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
May 1712: The publisher Bernard Lintot edited and published...
Writing climate item
May 1712
The publisher Bernard Lintot
edited and published MiscellaneousPoems and Translations, by several Hands.
December 1713: Richard Steele published Poetical Miscellanies;...
Writing climate item
December 1713
Richard Steele
published Poetical Miscellanies; it included poems by Pope
, Anne Finch
, and himself (including praise of the unnamed and only recently identified young Elizabeth Tollet
).
19 May 1720: A New Miscellany, edited by Anthony Hammond,...
December 1722: Alexander Pope edited and published his late...
Writing climate item
December 1722
Alexander Pope
edited and published his late friend Thomas Parnell
's Poems on Several Occasions.
19 June 1725: Dorothy Stanley, née Milborne, published...
Women writers item
19 June 1725
Dorothy Stanley
, née Milborne, published by subscription Sir Philip Sidney
's Arcadia Moderniz'd, in four books (coinciding with the thirteenth edition of the original romance).
English Short Title Catalogue. http://estc.bl.uk/.
Before 22 April 1739: Anne Dodd, for almost thirty years the best-known...
Writing climate item
Before 22 April 1739
Anne Dodd
, for almost thirty years the best-known of all the Londonmercuries or trade publishers, died, leaving the business to her daughters.
2 May 1742: Lady Euston, formerly Lady Dorothy Boyle,...
14 January 1744: Mark Akenside published a lengthy, influential,...
Writing climate item
14 January 1744
Mark Akenside
published a lengthy, influential, philosophic poem in blank verse entitled The Pleasures of Imagination: the faculty which, he argues, the artist uses to apprehend and to imitate the wonders of God's creation.
18 March 1748: Robert Dodsley first offered for sale his...
Writing climate item
18 March 1748
Robert Dodsley
first offered for sale his influential Collection of Poems by Several Hands.
By March 1756: Joseph Warton published An Essay on the Writings...
Writing climate item
By March 1756
Joseph Warton
published An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope.
1759: Adam Smith published with the Scottish firm...
1767: At auctions of copyright, Richardson's Clarissa...
Writing climate item
1767
At auctions of copyright, Richardson
's Clarissa was valued at £600, but Addison
and Steele
's Spectator at £1,300, Shakespeare
at £1,800, and Pope
at £4,400.
Texts
Pope, Alexander. An Epistle from Mr. Pope, to Dr. Arbuthnot. Lawton Gilliver, 1735.
Pope, Alexander. An Epistle to the Right Honourable Richard Earl of Burlington. Lawton Gilliver, 1731.
Pope, Alexander. An Essay on Criticism. W. Lewis, 1711.
Pope, Alexander. An Essay on Man. J. Wilford, 1734.
Pope, Alexander. Epilogue to the Satires. T. Cooper, 1738.
Seward, Anna et al. “Memoirs of Abelard and Eloisa”. Letters of Abelard and Eloisa, translated by. John Hughes and John Hughes, J. Mitchell, 1805.
Pope, Alexander. Of the Characters of Women: An Epistle to a Lady. Lawton Gilliver, 1735.
Pope, Alexander. Of the Use of Riches. Lawton Gilliver, 1732.
Pope, Alexander. Sober Advice from Horace. T. Boreman, 1734.
Pope, Alexander. The Dunciad. A. Dodd, 1728.
Pope, Alexander. The Dunciad in Four Books. M. Cooper, 1743.
Pope, Alexander. The Dunciad Variorum. A. Dodd, 1729.
Pope, Alexander. The First Satire of the Second Book of Horace. Lawton Gilliver, 1733.
Homer,. The Iliad of Homer. Translator Pope, Alexander, Bernard Lintott, 1720.
Pope, Alexander. The New Dunciad. T. Cooper, 1742.
Pope, Alexander. The Poems of Alexander Pope. Editor Butt, John, Methuen; Yale University Press, 1969.
Pope, Alexander. The Rape of the Lock. Bernard Lintott, 1714.
Pope, Alexander. The Second Satire of the Second Book of Horace. Lawton Gilliver, 1734.
Pope, Alexander. The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope. Bernard Lintot, 1717.
Pope, Alexander. The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope. Volume II. Lawton Gilliver, 1735.
Gay, John et al. Three Hours After Marriage. Bernard Lintot, 1717.
Pope, Alexander. Windsor-Forest. Bernard Lintott, 1713.