Bessie Rayner Parkes

-
Standard Name: Parkes, Bessie Rayner
Birth Name: Elizabeth Rayner Parkes
Nickname: Bessie
Married Name: Elizabeth Rayner Belloc
Bessie Rayner Parkes (later Belloc) , a late nineteenth-century feminist, focused her writings especially on issues relating to women's work. During her life she published a collection of miscellaneous essays, a collection of vignettes, numerous articles in periodicals, a travel book, and political treatises. Though her feminist writings have been better recognized, her passion was poetry. She published a lengthy philosophical poem in addition to three volumes of poems, some of which were later compiled into a collection.

Connections

Connections Sort ascending Author name Excerpt
Travel Adelaide Procter
The year-long visit in 1853-54 to her aunt Emily de Viry , a Catholic convert who was associated with the court at Turin, had a formative influence on AP 's life and religious beliefs...
Travel Anna Brownell Jameson
By this date ABJ was travelling in Italy with Bessie Parkes .
Johnston, Judith. Anna Jameson: Victorian, Feminist, Woman of Letters. Scolar Press.
7
Travel Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Barbara Leigh Smith and Bessie Rayner Parkes travelled throughout Europe without a chaperone, visiting Belgium, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
Herstein, Sheila R. A Mid-Victorian Feminist: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Yale University Press.
56-7
Textual Production Isa Craig
This volume included contributions by herself, Bessie Rayner Parkes , and Mary Howitt , as well as two poems by the Rossettis: Christina 's A Royal Princess and Dante Gabriel 's Sudden Light. The...
Textual Production Isa Craig
Its inaugural issues included several signed articles by her. She also enlisted contributions from Bessie Rayner Parkes , including an article she had previously published in the English Woman's Journal. IC also arranged for...
Textual Production Emily Faithfull
When EF went to work at The English Woman's Journal in November 1858, it was under the editorship of Bessie Rayner Parkes , who had already published poetry and social criticism. When the Victoria Press
Textual Production Jessie Boucherett
During the 1860s JB wrote a number of articles for the English Woman's Journal, the publication begun by Bessie Rayner Parkes and Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon (and of whose successor journal she was later editor).
Lacey, Candida Ann, editor. Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon and the Langham Place Group. Routledge.
225-77
Textual Production Ann Bridge
Susan Lowndes (daughter of novelist Marie Belloc Lowndes and so grand-daughter of suffragist Bessie Rayner Parkes ) was an old friend of AB and was resident in Portugal with her Portuguese husband. The two of...
Textual Production George Eliot
On 3 February 1858 GE declined an invitation from Bessie Rayner Parkes to write for the new English Woman's Journal. She explained, in strictest confidence, that she had given up writing articles in order...
Textual Production Georgiana Fullerton
The novel was serialised in the United States by The Catholic World from April 1865. It first appeared in three volumes by 16 September the same year. According to scholar Kathleen Grant Jaeger , this...
Textual Production Adelaide Procter
AP was involved with her reform-minded friends, including Bessie Rayner Parkes , Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon , and Matilda M. Hays , in helping to found the English Woman's Journal in 1858. She later contributed...
Textual Production Adelaide Procter
According to Bessie Rayner Parkes , Procter had to be urged to publish the collection. The first series, which was issued at a price of 5 shillings by Bell and Daldy , had another edition...
Textual Production Emily Faithfull
Bessie Rayner Parkes cancelled The English Woman's Journal's printing contract with the Victoria Press , perhaps aware of the impending divorce trial involving EF .
Stone, James S. Emily Faithfull: Victorian Champion of Women’s Rights. P. D. Meany.
17
Textual Production Matilda Hays
With Bessie Rayner Parkes , MH co-edited the English Woman's Journal, for which she also wrote on such subjects as Harriet Hosmer and Florence Nightingale .
Rendall, Jane. “’A Moral Engine’? Feminism, Liberalism and the <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘j’>English Woman’s Journal</span&gt”;. Equal or Different: Women’s Politics 1800-1914, edited by Jane Rendall, Basil Blackwell, pp. 112-38.
116, 120
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.
Textual Production Marie Belloc Lowndes
MBL 's four-volume autobiography closed with A Passing World, posthumously published. It does not mention the fact that its title re-uses that of one of her mother 's books and echoes that of one of her own.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

Timeline

8 June 1847: A Factory Act, also known as The Ten Hours...

Building item

8 June 1847

A Factory Act, also known as The Ten Hours Act, restricted the length of British women's and teenagers' working day in textile factories to ten hours.

December 1855: Barbara Leigh Smith, later Bodichon, founded...

National or international item

December 1855

Barbara Leigh Smith , later Bodichon, founded the Married Women's Property Committee (sometimes called the Women's Committee) to draw up a petition for a married women's property bill.

February 1856: The Waverley Journal: For the Cultivation...

Writing climate item

February 1856

The Waverley Journal: For the Cultivation of the Honourable, the Progressive and the Beautiful, began fortnightly publication, advertising itself as Edited and published by Ladies.
Harrison, Royden et al. The Warwick Guide to British Labour Periodicals, 1790-1970: A Check List. Harvester Press.
589

February 1858: Bessie Rayner Parkes described to George...

Building item

February 1858

Bessie Rayner Parkes described to George Eliot , in a letter, the limited company established by the Langham Place group to support The English Woman's Journal.

February 1858: Bessie Rayner Parkes described to George...

Building item

February 1858

Bessie Rayner Parkes described to George Eliot , in a letter, the limited company established by the Langham Place group to support The English Woman's Journal.

March 1858: The English Woman's Journal, a monthly magazine...

Women writers item

March 1858

The English Woman's Journal, a monthly magazine on the theory and practice of organised feminism, began publication in London, with financial support from Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon and others, under the editorship of...

7 July 1859: The first meeting of the Society for Promoting...

Building item

7 July 1859

The first meeting of the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women was held in London; founding members included Anna Jameson , Emily Faithfull , Jessie Boucherett , Adelaide Procter , Bessie Rayner Parkes , Isa Craig , and Sarah Lewin .

October 1859: The Society for Promoting the Employment...

National or international item

October 1859

Late 1859: The offices of The English Woman's Journal...

Women writers item

Late 1859

The offices of The English Woman's Journal moved from Cavendish Square to 19 Langham Place, where a ladies' club was also planned.

September 1860: Emily Faithfull and Bessie Rayner Parkes...

Writing climate item

September 1860

Emily Faithfull and Bessie Rayner Parkes spoke on the employment of women in printing trades at the fourth annual conference of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science held in Glasgow.

1861: Maria Rye established the Female Middle Class...

National or international item

1861

Maria Rye established the Female Middle Class Emigration Society in response to the scarcity of jobs in England for girls and women.

August 1864: The English Woman's Journal, a practical...

Building item

August 1864

The English Woman's Journal, a practical and theoretical source of organized feminism from London, merged into The Alexandra Magazine and English Woman's Journal.

18 August 1882: The Married Women's Property Act gave women...

National or international item

18 August 1882

The Married Women's Property Act gave women the right to all the property they earned or acquired before or during marriage.

Texts

Parkes, Bessie Rayner. A Passing World. Ward and Downey, 1897.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. “A Review of the Last Six Years”. Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon and the Langham Place Group, edited by Candida Ann Lacey, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986, pp. 215-22.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. “A Review of the Last Six Years”. Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon and the Langham Group, edited by Candida Ann Lacey, 2nd edition, Routledge, 2001, pp. 215-22.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. Ballads and Songs. Bell and Daldy, 1863.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner et al., editors. English Woman’s Journal. English Woman’s Journal Company.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. Essays on Woman’s Work. Alexander Strahan, 1865.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. Essays on Woman’s Work. Cambridge University Press, 2010, http://www.cambridge.org/series/sSeries.asp?code=CLOR.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. Gabriel. J. Chapman, 1856.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. Historic Nuns. Duckworth, 1898.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. In a Walled Garden. Ward and Downey, 1895.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. In a Walled Garden. Ward and Downey, 1896.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. “In a Walled Garden, 1895”. Indiana University: Victorian Women Writers Project.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. In Fifty Years. Sands, 1904.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner, and Mary Merryweather. “Introduction”. Experience of Factory Life, 3rdrd ed, E. Faithfull, 1862.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. “Isa Craig and the Prize Poem on Burns”. English Woman’s Journal, Vol.
2
, No. 12, pp. 417-20.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. La belle France. Strahan, 1868.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. Peoples of the World. Cassell, Petter and Galpin, 1870.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. Poems. J. Chapman, 1852.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. Remarks on the Education of Girls. J. Chapman, 1854.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. Remarks on the Education of Girls. Cambridge University Press, 2010, http://www.cambridge.org/series/sSeries.asp?code=CLOR.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. Summer Sketches and Other Poems. J. Chapman, 1854.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. The Flowing Tide. Sands, 1900.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner, and Anne Leigh Smith. The History of Our Cat Aspasia. 1856.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. “The Poems of Adelaide Anne Procter”. The Month, Vol.
4
, pp. 79-88.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. The Problems of the Feminist Periodical: Letter to Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon.