Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Sarah Fielding
-
Standard Name: Fielding, Sarah
Birth Name: Sarah Fielding
Pseudonym: A Lady
Pseudonym: The Author of David Simple
SF
, best known as a mid-eighteenth-century novelist, tried a range of other genres as well: history, criticism, a play, a translation, and a landmark children's book which is both a work of pedagogy and commonly billed as the first school story for girls. Her reputation is gradually emerging from the shadow of her brother Henry
's and enabling recognition of her status as a woman of letters, and her pivotal position in the history of the novel.
EH
's reputation during her lifetime and immediately afterwards (bolstered by Pope's image of her in the Dunciad) was of the quintessential practitioner of the novel, seen as low-grade entertainment both intellectually and morally...
Reception
Frances Seymour, Countess of Hertford
The answer, written by a woman for a man [and now generally agreed to be by Montagu], woundingly concludes, the Fruit that can fall without shakeing / Indeed is too mellow for me.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. Essays and Poems and Simplicity, A Comedy. Editors Halsband, Robert and Isobel Grundy, Oxford University Press.
263
These...
Publishing
Mary Martha Sherwood
MMS
published at Wellington in ShropshireThe Governess; or, The Little Female Academy, adapted from Sarah Fielding
.
Sherwood, Mary Martha. The Governess. F. Houlston.
title-page
Author summary
Jane Collier
JC
was a remarkably innovative and experimental prose-writer of the mid-eighteenth century. She produced one anti-conduct-book, one collaborative novel (written together with Sarah Fielding
), a remarkable commonplace-book (only recently discovered), and trenchant literary-critical comments...
Henry Fothergill Chorley
in the Athenæum faulted the book as being something close to a textbook under the guise of entertainment. Young people, he argued, resent such books as engines of oppression.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
1788 (1862): 151
Literary responses
Samuel Richardson
With Clarissa's rape and death, Richardson's circle became more critical than they had been all along, and objections from them and other readers began flowing thick and fast. The whole novel was discussed in print...
Literary responses
Evelyn Sharp
Beverly Lyon Clark
, who wrote an introduction to this book and thought extremely highly of it, argued that the neglect of it stemmed from its belonging not just to one but to several under-appreciated...
Literary responses
Eliza Haywood
In the Monthly Review, Ralph Griffiths
passed a judgement which was inflected against Betsy Thoughtless by issues of gender. He guessed that the author was female because of the novel's attention to matters of...
Literary responses
Hester Lynch Piozzi
An early poem in her praise, perhaps written by Sarah Fielding
, mentions her literary accomplishments. She too prided herself intensely on them.
Clifford, James L. Hester Lynch Piozzi (Mrs Thrale). Clarendon Press.
27-30
Literary responses
Mary Martha Sherwood
Charlotte Yonge
in 1870 wrote that MMS
had adapted the original to her own Evangelical style and had introduced one admirable fairy tale.
Yonge, Charlotte, editor. A Storehouse of Stories. Macmillan.
1: vii
Mika Suzuki
has commented on Sherwood's relation to Fielding
in...
Literary responses
Mary Collyer
Brian Alderson
noted that this may be the earliest known publication of secular stories for children in English, and called it the pearl of the Ludford Box—
Immel, Andrea. “<span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>A Christmass-Box</span>. Mary Homebred and Mary Collyer: Connecting the Dots”. Children’s Books History Society Newsletter, No. 94, pp. 1-4.
1
although he had nothing but contempt...
Intertextuality and Influence
Mary Lamb
M. B.'s purpose in story-telling is not moral improvement but making little girls feel better (the youngest is seven): cheering them up since, newly sent to boarding school, they are crying for home; alleviating their...
Intertextuality and Influence
Phebe Gibbes
She supplies a kind of cast list of characters, and says she has written A Dramatic Novel
Gibbes, Phebe. The Niece; or, The History of Sukey Thornby. F. Noble.
prelims
largely in dialogue, without the interruptions of Said he and Said she.
Gibbes, Phebe. The Niece; or, The History of Sukey Thornby. F. Noble.
prelims
(In claiming the novelty...
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Sarah Gooch
ESG
quotes on her title-page from James Hammond
and early in her first volume from Samuel Johnson
(no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the author).
Gooch, Elizabeth Sarah. The Life of Mrs Gooch. Printed for the authoress and sold by C. and G. Kearsley.