Mary Hays
-
MH
is one of the best-known among the group of radical feminists surrounding Mary Wollstonecraft; she is notable for arguing from emotion, even passion, as well as reason. She wrote two novels, poetry, and a number of polemical and biographical works.
Milestones
4 May 1759
MH
was born in Southwark, London, into a family that in the end numbered at least six children.
Hays, Mary. “Chronology and Introduction”. The Correspondence (1779-1843) of Mary Hays, British Novelist, edited by Marilyn Brooks, Edwin Mellen, pp. xv - xx; 1.
xv
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
December 1782
MH
's poem entitled Invocation to the Nightingale (opening Wand'ring o'er the dewy meadow) appeared as by Miss Heys in the final volume of James Harrison
's collected Lady's Poetical Magazine.
Harrison, James, editor. The Lady’s Poetical Magazine; or, Beauties of British Poetry. James Harrison.
July 1796
MH
wrote in the Monthly Magazine about the need for a collection of inspiring biographies of women, which may be seen as the germ of her own collection of 1802.
Kelly, Gary. Women, Writing, and Revolution 1790-1827. Clarendon.
234
November 1796
MH
published, with her name, her first, autobiographical, novel, Memoirs of Emma Courtney, which presents its heroine unacceptably focussed on the pursuit of education, self-development, and love.
Kelly, Gary. Women, Writing, and Revolution 1790-1827. Clarendon.
95
By December 1802
MH
published with her name, in six volumes with 1803 on its title-page, Female Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women, of All Ages and Countries. Alphabetically Arranged.
Wood, Jeanne. “’Alphabetically Arranged’: Mary Hays’s <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>Female Biography</span> and the Biographical Dictionary”. Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture, Vol.
31
, No. 2, pp. 117-42. 117n1
Hays, Mary. Female Biography. Richard Phillips.
title-page
Summer 1821
MH
published with her name, unfinished, her second biography collection, Memoirs of Queens, Illustrious and Celebrated.
Kelly, Gary. Women, Writing, and Revolution 1790-1827. Clarendon.
258
20 February 1843
MH
died at Lower Clapton; Henry Crabb Robinson
heard the news on the same day.
Editor Marilyn Brooks
gives her death-date as 22 February.
Hays, Mary. “Chronology and Introduction”. The Correspondence (1779-1843) of Mary Hays, British Novelist, edited by Marilyn Brooks, Edwin Mellen, pp. xv - xx; 1.
xviii
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Kelly, Gary. Women, Writing, and Revolution 1790-1827. Clarendon.
264
Hays, Mary. “Chronology and Introduction”. The Correspondence (1779-1843) of Mary Hays, British Novelist, edited by Marilyn Brooks, Edwin Mellen, pp. xv - xx; 1.
xviii
Biography
Birth and Background
4 May 1759
MH
was born in Southwark, London, into a family that in the end numbered at least six children.
Hays, Mary. “Chronology and Introduction”. The Correspondence (1779-1843) of Mary Hays, British Novelist, edited by Marilyn Brooks, Edwin Mellen, pp. xv - xx; 1.
xv
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.