Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
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.
Three biographies appeared in the years following MBF
's death, and went through many re-issues. Local memory of her remained strong (as instanced by the Memorial Chapel at Leyton Wesleyan church), and so did international...
Alexander Fullerton was heir to estates in Gloucestershire and Northern Ireland, including Ballintoy Castle in County Antrim. He was an officer with the Royal Horse Guards
(the Blues) before his marriage. There was some...
Occupation
Georgiana Fullerton
From the year 1855, GF
's devotion manifested itself in the charitable work for which she became known. On her own death thirty years after this, an obituarist in the Irish Monthly Magazine wrote that...
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...
Uglow, Jennifer S. Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories. Faber and Faber.
311
Intertextuality and Influence
Dora Greenwell
Throughout the essay DG
relates her arguments to those of John Stuart Mill
, Anna Jameson
, and Bessie Rayner Parkes
, and though she agrees with them on certain points (mainly their call for...
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 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>”;. 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.
Occupation
Matilda Hays
As well as co-founding and co-editing the English Woman's Journal with Bessie Rayner Parkes
(between 1857 and 1862),
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>”;. Equal or Different: Women’s Politics 1800-1914, edited by Jane Rendall, Basil Blackwell, pp. 112-38.
Merrill, Lisa. When Romeo Was a Woman. University of Michigan Press.
185
Friends, Associates
Matilda Hays
Working on the English Woman's Journal strengthened MH
's connection to members of the Langham Place Group
. The tie that she formed with with Theodosia, Lady Monson
, lasted into her obscure later years...
Occupation
Matilda Hays
By 1861 MH
was a partner in the Victoria Press
. Her involvement, however, was short-lived, and she never invested any funds in the press.
Stone, James S. Emily Faithfull: Victorian Champion of Women’s Rights. P. D. Meany.
52, 238n10
By 1860 rumours were apparently circulating about her...
Family and Intimate relationships
Matilda Hays
Marie Belloc Lowndes
, daughter of Bessie Rayner Parkes
, recalled MH
as a tall, handsome woman with a strongly featured face, very clever, and with a great deal of charm, particularly for other women...
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...