Sarah Trimmer

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Standard Name: Trimmer, Sarah
Birth Name: Sarah Kirby
Married Name: Sarah Trimmer
ST 's writing arose out of her work for two causes, religion and education, brought most closely together in her interest in Sunday schools. She edited magazines and was a pioneer both in animal stories for children and in the reviewing of children's books. Her pedagogical concerns place her in the tradition of Barbauld and Genlis , but her sense of religion is narrower, and her writing more pedestrian. She was a populariser and an activist for better training for the poor. From the opening of her publishing career in the 1780s, her output was phenomenally high; its continuance after her death suggests a kind of production line or at least a family business.

Connections

Connections Author name Sort descending Excerpt
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Clara Balfour
CB included in her collection the well-known writers Hannah More , Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna , Anna Letitia Barbauld , and Sarah Trimmer . Subjects of other sketches which also appeared separately included many of evangelical...
Intertextuality and Influence Anna Letitia Barbauld
Taken together, ALB 's various writings for children during her career as educator at Palgrave School exerted enormous influence on other children's writers, such as Maria Edgeworth , Sarah Trimmer , Hannah More , and...
Intertextuality and Influence Anna Letitia Barbauld
The Critical Review gave high praise to each of the series. So did the Monthly, which also cracked her anonymity from the beginning.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
46 (1778): 160; 47 (1779): 320
McCarthy, William. Anna Letitia Barbauld, Voice of the Enlightenment. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
191-2
Vulnerable as a Dissenter,...
Literary responses Anna Letitia Barbauld
Sarah Trimmer disapproved of Things by their right Names and also of The Rookery, in which she felt the community of birds showed republican tendencies. George Eliot , who read this book at seven...
Textual Features Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger
EOB writes in terms of a women's tradition: for instance, she praises Barbauld for praising Elizabeth Rowe . She makes confident judgements and attributions (she is sure that Lady Pakington is the real author of...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Henrietta Maria Bowdler
In this work HMB warns against improper choice of friends and the excesses of romantic friendship, even while she idealises true friendship. She praises the well-employed talents of Elizabeth Montagu , Elizabeth Smith , Hannah More
Education Angela Brazil
Her home, too, contributed importantly to her education. She drew, painted, and made serious, carefully-labelled collections of wild flowers, stones, shells, and seaweed. Her first book, encountered at home when she was five and a...
Literary responses Hester Mulso Chapone
Her brother John wrote of the Praises that resound on all Sides following the publication of this book, though he regretted that reviewers, in praising the moral content, had ignored the literary style.
Myers, Sylvia Harcstark. The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship, and the Life of the Mind in Eighteenth-Century England. Clarendon.
231
Recently Sylvia Harcstark Myers
Education Frances Power Cobbe
FPC received lessons from her nurse Martha Jones and from her mother . Her reading included Sarah Trimmer 's History of the Robins, Anna Barbauld 's Lessons for Children, and poetry by Jane Taylor
Textual Features Eliza Cook
In the address to her readers in the first issue EC casts herself as an unpatronising contributor to popular education: Let it not be imagined I am appointing myself any particular right to lead or...
Textual Features Eliza Cook
Her poetic topics strongly reflect her reliance on well-tried promoters of sentiment: death, parting, gypsies, favourite horses and dogs, local feeling for Scotland or Ireland. The collection closes with a section of poems for...
Family and Intimate relationships Elizabeth Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
Eventually Lady Elizabeth's illegitimate children, so unceremoniously disposed of as babies, were brought back to England to be educated (by Selina , daughter of Sarah Trimmer ) together with Georgiana's cossetted offspring. The two Irish...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Anne Katharine Elwood
Some of the British women writers discussed in the text remain well-known, but others have slipped into obscurity. Memoirs includes: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu , Griselda Murray , Frances Seymour, Lady Hertford , Hester Lynch Piozzi
Literary responses Eliza Fenwick
This, together with Presents for Good Girls and Presents for Good Boys, was reviewed in Sarah Trimmer 's The Guardian of Education in 1804. Scholar Lissa Paul believes that EF succeeded better than almost...
Education Elizabeth Gaskell
Until the age of eleven, Elizabeth was taught at home by her Aunt Hannah Lumb . As befitting the Unitarian emphasis on personal freedom and rationality, she read widely, and was encouraged to make her...

Timeline

August 1715: Isaac Watts published Divine Songs Attempted...

Writing climate item

August 1715

Isaac Watts published DivineSongs Attempted in Easy Language for the Use of Children.

About 1765: Catharine Cappeimg: move in unlikely event...

Building item

About 1765

Catharine Cappe opened one of the earliest recorded Sunday schools, at Catterick in Yorkshire.

1769: Hannah Ballimg: move in unlikely event of...

Building item

1769

Hannah Ball opened an early Methodist Sunday school at High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire.

2 August 1788: The painter Thomas Gainsborough died at the...

Building item

2 August 1788

The painter Thomas Gainsborough died at the age of sixty-two; he was buried beside his friend Joshua Kirby (father of Sarah Trimmer ) in Kew churchyard.

6 November 1798: One John Way wrote an account of a poor widow...

Building item

6 November 1798

One John Way wrote an account of a poor widow in Hasketon near Ipswich in Suffolk and her—successful—struggle to maintain her family.

15 July 1819: Byron began to publish in instalments (opening...

Writing climate item

15 July 1819

Byron began to publish in instalments (opening with cantos one and two) his satiricalmock-epicpoemDon Juan; he left it unfinished at his death.

5 February 1836: The children's writer Dorothy Kilner died...

Women writers item

5 February 1836

The children's writerDorothy Kilner died at Stratford near London; she and her sister-in-law, Mary Ann Kilner (1753-1831), published their anonymous, undated works through John Marshall from the 1770s.

Texts

Trimmer, Sarah. A Comment on Dr Watts’s Divine Songs for Children. J. Buckland, 1789.
Trimmer, Sarah. A Companion to the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. T. Longman, 1791.
Trimmer, Sarah. A Comparative View of the New Plan of Education promulgated by Mr. Joseph Lancaster. F. C. and J. Rivington, and J. Hatchard, 1805.
Trimmer, Sarah. A Description of a Set of Prints of Roman History. J. Marshall, 1789.
Trimmer, Sarah. A Help to the Unlearned in the Study of the Holy Scriptures. F. C. and J. Rivington and J. Hatchard, 1805.
Trimmer, Sarah. A Plan for Promoting the Religious Observance of the Sabbath-Day. 1790.
Trimmer, Sarah. A Series of Prints of Roman History. J. Marshall, 1789.
Trimmer, Sarah. An Abridgement of the New Testament. F. And C. Rivington, 1797.
Trimmer, Sarah. An Easy Introduction to the Knowledge of Nature. Printed for the author, 1780.
Trimmer, Sarah. An Essay on Christian Education. F. and J. Rivington, 1818.
Trimmer, Sarah. Fabulous Histories. T. Longman, and G. G. J. and J. Robinson, and J. Johnson, 1786.
Trimmer, Sarah. Reflections upon the Education of Children in Charity Schools. T. Longman and J. and F. Rivington, 1792.
Trimmer, Sarah. Reflections upon the Education of Children in Charity Schools. Cambridge University Press, 2010, http://www.cambridge.org/series/sSeries.asp?code=CLOR.
Trimmer, Sarah. Sacred History. J. Dodsley, T. Longman and G. Robinson, and J. Johnson, 1785.
Avery, Gillian et al. “Selected Bibliography: Sarah Trimmer”. Fabulous Histories; and, The Dairyman’s Daughter, edited by Justin G. Schiller et al., Garland Publishing, 1977, p. xiv - xvi.
Trimmer, Sarah. Sermons for Family Reading. J. Hatchard, and F. C. and J. Rivington, 1811.
Trimmer, Sarah. Some Account of the Life and Writings of Mrs. Trimmer. F.C and J. Rivington and J. Johnson, and J. Hatchard, 1814.
Trimmer, Sarah. The Family Magazine. J. Marshall.
Trimmer, Sarah. The Guardian of Education. J. Hatchard.
Trimmer, Sarah. The Servant’s Friend. T. Longman, G. G. J. and J. Robinson, and J. Johnson , 1786.
Trimmer, Sarah. The Sunday-School Catechist. T. Longman, G. G. J. and J. Robinson, and J. Johnson, 1788.
Trimmer, Sarah. The Two Farmers. T. Longman, G. G. J. and J. Robinson, and J. Johnson , 1786.
Trimmer, Sarah. The Œconomy of Charity. T. Longman, 1787.