Matilda Hays

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Matilda Hays was a novelist, translator of George Sand , editor, and contributor to periodicals. Her work spanned many genres and a variety of topics related to women's work and opportunities. One of her two novels contains semi-autobiographical treatment of her passionate relationship with Charlotte Cushman . An outspoken proponent of mid-Victorian feminism, she is best remembered for her connection to other prominent women, including Cushman, Harriet Hosmer , and Adelaide Procter .
Black and white photograph of Matilda Hays (standing on the right) with Charlotte Cushman (sitting on the left). Matilda Hays is wearing a fancy vest and skirt, with a bowtie around her neck. Her hair is parted in the middle and tied back. Her left arm is resting on a book on top of a doric pillar with floral design on the sides near the top. Charlotte Cushman is wearing a very similar outfit except her skirt has some striped design on it. Her hair is parted in the middle, but it is tied up in a double bun.

Milestones

8 September 1820
MH was born in London.
“FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service”. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Around 1838
By the age of eighteen, MH was contributing to periodicals, frequently on women's issues.
Merrill, Lisa. When Romeo Was a Woman. University of Michigan Press, 1999.
156-7
1846
MH 's first novel, the proto-feminist kunstlerroman Helen Stanley, appeared.
Blain, Virginia, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy, editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
By 22 May 1847
A multi-volume series titled The Works of George Sand appeared, edited by MH and translated by both her and Eliza Ashurst ; this first series of English translations of Sand 's novels ended in December this year after publishing only six volumes.
The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870.
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online.
Blain, Virginia, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy, editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
Merrill, Lisa. When Romeo Was a Woman. University of Michigan Press, 1999.
157
Sand, George. The Works of George Sand. Hays, Matilda, Eliza Ashurst, and Edmund Roberts LarkenTranslators , E. Churton, 1847.
6: prelims
By 30 December 1865
MH 's semi-autobiographical novel, Adrienne Hope: The Story of a Life, was published by T. Cautley Newby with a date of 1866.
British Library Catalogue.
The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870.
Blain, Virginia, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy, editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
3 July 1897
MH died in Liverpool, after a final three decades of which very little is known.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Biography

Birth and Influences

8 September 1820
MH was born in London.
“FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service”. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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