Catherine Hutton

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CH was a woman of letters publishing in the early nineteenth century. She began early to write letters and journals; she edited her father's autobiography and his local history, as well as a book of travels; she projected an unprecedented illustrated history of costume and a biographical history of English queens; and she published essays and criticism for magazines. Her three novels combine fine character-drawing and observation of social nuance with the same kind of non-fictional writing that fills her periodical pieces.
Photograph of a stipple engraving of Catherine Hutton by William Read, published in 1824,. She is seen from the waist up, wearing a simple dark, high-waisted dress with white linen at the neckline, a light shawl with fringed edges, and a ruffled bonnet or cap, tied with a large ribbon on her dark curly hair. The background features a column and drapery. Below is inscribed as if in italic hand her name and the titles of her novels: "Author of Oakwood Hall, The Miser Married, and The Welsh Mountaineer." Natio
"Catherine Hutton" Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Catherine_Hutton.jpg. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication license. This work is in the public domain.

Milestones

11 February 1756
CH was born, prematurely. According to her father, she was perhaps the smallest human being ever seen, and at a month old she would have fitted in his pocket.
Constantine, Mary-Ann. “’The bounds of female reach’ Catherine Hutton’s Fiction and her Tours in Wales”. Romantic Textualities: Literature and Print Culture, 1780-1840, issue 22.
Hutton, Catherine. Reminiscences of a Gentlewoman of the Last Century. Editor Beale, Catherine Hutton, Cornish Brothers, 1891.
1
By early 1805
CH was well advanced in her project for the world's first illustrated history of costume.
Beale, Catherine Hutton, editor. Catherine Hutton and Her Friends. Cornish Brothers, 1895.
133
30 March 1844
CH wrote, I have no taste for old age. I find it requires great patience to make it endurable, and I like youth much better.
Hutton, Catherine. Reminiscences of a Gentlewoman of the Last Century. Editor Beale, Catherine Hutton, Cornish Brothers, 1891.
221
13 March 1846
CH died, aged ninety, eight months after the death of her brother and three months after becoming paralysed.
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
1 (1846): 436

Biography

Birth and Family

11 February 1756
CH was born, prematurely. According to her father, she was perhaps the smallest human being ever seen, and at a month old she would have fitted in his pocket.
Constantine, Mary-Ann. “’The bounds of female reach’ Catherine Hutton’s Fiction and her Tours in Wales”. Romantic Textualities: Literature and Print Culture, 1780-1840, issue 22.
Hutton, Catherine. Reminiscences of a Gentlewoman of the Last Century. Editor Beale, Catherine Hutton, Cornish Brothers, 1891.
1