Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Mary Astell
-
Standard Name: Astell, Mary
Birth Name: Mary Astell
Pseudonym: A Lover of Her Sex
Pseudonym: The Author of the Proposal to the Ladies
Pseudonym: The Reflector
Pseudonym: Tom Single
Pseudonym: A very Moderate Person and Dutiful Subject of the
Queen
Pseudonym: A Daughter of the Church of England
Pseudonym: Mr Wotton
Best known as a feminist theorist and polemicist, MA
is also a fine poet and an energetic and funny controversialist on the political affairs of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. A High Anglican and High Tory in politics, she was nevertheless outspokenly radical about matters concerning gender. Her regular publisher, Rich or Richard Wilkin
, was known for his piety.
According to its title-page, it was published in 1689.
O’Donnell, Mary Ann. Aphra Behn: An Annotated Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources. Garland.
155
It was dedicated to Hortense Mancini, duchesse de Mazarin
, now settled in England (who had been, like Behn's former dedicatee Nell Gwyn, a mistress...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Mary Matilda Betham
MMB
also has strong coverage of writers, scholars, and activists, like Anne Askew
, Mary Astell
(whose uncle she credits with having generously tutored her), and Ann Bacon
. She seems to have excluded the...
Literary Setting
Sarah Butler
Butler makes of this history a novel ostensibly in ten parts, though the plot continues through them as a single sustained narrative. They are titled The Captivated Monarch, The Banish'd Prince (both titles to...
SC
was a great networker. Having met George Ballard
, a local man (perhaps because her sister was a patient of his mother, who was a midwife), she introduced him to Elizabeth Elstob
and to...
Textual Features
Sarah Chapone
SC
used letters to introduce John Wesley
to the works of Mary Astell
—just as, later, she used letters to raise the consciousness of George Ballard
.
Textual Features
Sarah Chapone
SC
's attitude to this very public fallen woman is unusual and carefully analysed. The situation recalls that of Mary Astell
writing about Hortense Mancini
in Reflections on Marriage.
Glover, Susan Paterson, and Sarah Chapone. “Introduction”. The Hardships of the English Laws, Routledge, pp. 1-16.
7
As a most abused...
Textual Features
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
Her choice of Descartes is interesting in view of his particular interest for such proto-feminist writers as Mary Astell
in the early eighteenth century. Her other two essays on philosophy were about John Locke
and...
Reception
Anne Conway
Two of AC
's most recent editors, Coudert
and Corse
, more forcefully assert that hers is the most interesting and original philosophical treatise written by a woman in the seventeenth century
Conway, Anne. “Introduction”. The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy, edited by Allison P. Coudert and Taylor Corse, Cambridge University Press, p. vii - xxxiii.
xxix
and that...
Cultural formation
Ann Cook
AC
, apparently English and presumably white, presents an interesting study in class consciousness. She links herself with poor, low Servants in indignation at their treatment by the gentry class. She hints that her parents...
Textual Features
Mary Whateley Darwall
The volume's heavy concentration on pastoral may be due to MWD
's deference to her mentors, though pastoral conventions seem often to have beem apt to her feelings. The farewell poem An Elegy on Leaving...
Textual Production
Judith Drake
In the late 1990s, a bookshop offered for sale a two-leaf poem which seems to come from a longer work entitled To the Most Ingenious Mrs. — . . . Defence of Her Sex...
Anthologization
Judith Drake
The lengthy title lists the satirical sketches that the work contains.
English Short Title Catalogue. http://estc.bl.uk/.
The attribution to JD
by name comes from a catalogue published by Edmund Curll
in 1741 (which mentions James Drake
as arranging the publication...
Intertextuality and Influence
Judith Drake
Her remark that English women are born slaves,
Drake, Judith. An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex. A. Roper, E. Wilkinson, and R. Clavel, http://U of A, Special Collections.
22
like black plantation labourers, may have given the phrase to Mary Astell
, whose use of it is famous.
Intertextuality and Influence
May Drummond
Thomas Story
said that at the beginning of her preaching career MD
had a Turn of Expression . . . very taking to most Hearers, especially the more polite sort of both Sexes,
Story, Thomas.
720
and...
Timeline
1628: Publication began of the legal treatise known...
Building item
1628
Publication began of the legal treatise known to later generations as Coke upon Littleton: The first part of the Institutes of the Lawes of England, or a Commentarie upon Littleton by jurist Sir Edward Coke
.
1656: Abraham Cowley published Poems; this volume,...
Writing climate item
1656
Abraham Cowley
published Poems; this volume, which included his Pindaric Odes and Miscellanies, confirmed his stature as the leading poet of the day.
1670: Les Pensées de M. Pascal sur la réligion,...
Writing climate item
1670
Les Pensées de M. Pascal
sur la réligion, et sur quelques autres sujets was posthumously published: it takes the form of a collection of aphorisms and very brief essays.
1680: Josiah Priest and his wife moved their girls'...
Building item
1680
Josiah Priest
and his wife moved their girls' boarding school from Leicester Fields in London to Chelsea, where they took over an existing school in Gorges House.
1 April 1684: George Hickes (later a patron of Elizabeth...
Building item
1 April 1684
George Hickes
(later a patron of Elizabeth Elstob
) preached at St Bridget's Church in London a sermon on almsgiving which made particular mention of charities to benefit women, including schools and colleges along the...
January 1697: Daniel Defoe proposed in his early publication...
Building item
January 1697
Daniel Defoe
proposed in his early publication An Essay upon Projects (advertised for sale this month) the founding of an academy for women.
1707: George Hickes published, as Instructions...
Building item
1707
George Hickes
published, as Instructions for the Education of a Daughter, a translation of Fénelon
's Traité de l'éducation des filles, 1687.
Before 21 October 1714: George Berkeley compiled and published The...
Writing climate item
Before 21 October 1714
George Berkeley
compiled and published The Ladies Library, as by a Lady.
June 1816: Lady Isabella King opened at Bailbrook House...
Building item
June 1816
Lady Isabella King
opened at Bailbrook House near Bath a communal home for single gentlewomen (or Protestant nunnery): a project going back to Mary Astell
, which King picked up from Sarah Scott
's Millenium Hall.
Texts
Astell, Mary. A Fair Way with the Dissenters. Richard Wilkin, 1704.
Astell, Mary. A Serious Proposal to the Ladies. Richard Wilkin, 1694.
Astell, Mary. A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Part II. Richard Wilkin, 1697.
Astell, Mary. An Impartial Enquiry into the Causes of Rebellion and Civil War in this Kingdom. Richard Wilkin, 1704.
Astell, Mary. Bart’lemy Fair. Richard Wilkin, 1709.
Astell, Mary. “Introduction”. The First English Feminist, edited by Bridget Hill, St Martin’s Press, 1986, pp. 1-62.
Norris, John, and Mary Astell. Letters Concerning the Love of God. S. Manship and Richard Wilkin, 1695.
Astell, Mary. Moderation Truly Stated. Richard Wilkin, 1704.
Astell, Mary. Reflections Upon Marriage. John Nutt, 1700.
Astell, Mary. The Christian Religion. Richard Wilkin, 1705.
Astell, Mary. The First English Feminist. Editor Hill, Bridget, St Martin’s Press, 1986.