Bessie Rayner Parkes

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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.
Sepia toned photograph of Bessie Rayner Parkes, seated on an upholstered chair, with an ornate table next to her. Her hands are clasped in her lap, she is wearing a dark dress with a voluminous skirt and long sleeves. She has dark, wavy, shoulder-length hair.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
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 Features George Eliot
This story is equally remarkable for the portraits of Mr Tryan (the Evangelical clergyman who not only converts Janet to his beliefs but succeeds in sparking her will to regeneration) and of Janet herself, but...
Textual Features Anna Brownell Jameson
ABJ 's views on women and work were taken up with enthusiasm by Bessie Rayner Parkes , Barbara Leigh Smith , and other Langham Place Group members who combined their efforts to found the English...
Textual Features Janet Hamilton
The vigour and originality of her voice on women's issues requires greater recognition, ranging as it does from the satiric Crinoline, to Contrasted Scenes from Real Life which juxtaposes the earthly lot of Lady Emily Hay
Textual Features Anna Brownell Jameson
ABJ lent her writings as well as her moral support to these young feminists, by permitting extracts from her work to appear in the Waverley Journal during the period when Bessie Rayner Parkes and others...
Textual Features Marie Belloc Lowndes
She was asked by Reginald Smith , editor of the Cornhill, to contribute an account of her mother 's young days, but she did not feel I could assent to his wish.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. The Merry Wives of Westminster. Macmillan.
169
Reception Adelaide Procter
By 1877 AP was said to be second only to Tennyson in the sales of her work, and, as Bessie Rayner Belloc said, her poems must have penetrated into every reading household in Great Britain...
Reception Matilda Hays
In a letter to Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon in 1858, Bessie Rayner Parkes wrote that all goes on like clockwork at the office, under Max, who is the most methodical of workers, & brings all...
Publishing Anna Mary Howitt
During her time in Munich and her briefer time in Oberammergau, AMH wrote articles which were published in the Ladies' Companion, the Athenæum, and Household Words. Her description of the Oberammergau passion...
Publishing Christina Rossetti
After the appearance of Goblin Market, CR had less difficulty placing her verse in periodicals. The tide had already started to turn in the 1850s, when her work began to appear in journals including...
Publishing Marie Belloc Lowndes
MBL made her views known to the public through the columns of the Times on a variety of political and literary issues: women's suffrage, food rationing during the first world war (on which she offered...
politics Jessie Boucherett
JB and Bessie Rayner Parkes delivered papers at the Congress of the Social Science Association at Bradford, addressing issues relating to women's employment.
Stone, James S. Emily Faithfull: Victorian Champion of Women’s Rights. P. D. Meany.
47
politics Anna Brownell Jameson
ABJ became a mentor to a group of young reformers and educational pioneers, including Adelaide Procter , Emily Faithfull , and Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon . She sometimes provided meeting space for the group, both...
politics Emily Faithfull
EF and Bessie Parkes founded the Edinburgh branch of the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women (SPEW).
Stone, James S. Emily Faithfull: Victorian Champion of Women’s Rights. P. D. Meany.
44
politics Isa Craig
Together with feminist colleagues Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon , Bessie Rayner Parkes , and Emily Davies , IC helped publicise John Stuart Mill's parliamentary nomination.
Hirsch, Pam. Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon 1827-1891: Feminist, Artist and Rebel. Chatto and Windus.
216

Timeline

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Texts

Parkes, Bessie Rayner. Vignettes. Alexander Strahan, 1866.