Delarivier Manley

-
DM was a pioneer in many fields: poetry, drama, journalism, and fiction, and the genres with which the fiction of her period interlocked: letters, soft pornography, satire, secret history, romance autobiography, and political polemic. She was proud of being first in the field on the Tory side during the pamphlet wars of Queen Anne's reign. As critic Paula McDowell remarks, her writing identity was shaped by the new concept of print culture as an industry, an employer of labour.
McDowell, Paula. The Women of Grub Street: Press, Politics, and Gender in the London Literary Marketplace, 1678-1730. Clarendon, 1998.
243, 220
  • BirthName: Delarivier Manley
  • Nickname: Dela
  • Married: Manley
    DM married a cousin, so her birth and married names are the same. Early scholarship on her called her Mary (from confusion with a sister who died quite young, and from the rarity of her actual Christian name). Reference sources have not kept up with research. In 2017 EEBO (Early English Books Online) lists her as Mrs. Manley, ECCO (Eighteenth Century Collections Online) as Delariviere Manley and the British Library Catalogue as Mary de la Rivière Manley. There is no basis whatever for calling her Mary; but the practice is almost impossible to kill. DM signed Delarivier, De la riviere, etc., and Dela.
  • Pseudonyms: Melpomene; Thalia; Delia; The Translator of the New Atalantis; Rivella
  • Indexed: Mary de la Riviere Manley
    This form of DM 's name, assigned her in error, has entered catalogues from which it seems impossible to expunge it.
    ; Mary Delarivier Manley
    This form, a compromise between historical correctness and earlier-twentieth-century error, is used (for instance) on the cover of Broadview Press 's 1999 edition of Rivella—whose title-page, however, gives DM 's name correctly.
    Manley, Delarivier. The Adventures of Rivella. Editor Zelinsky, Katherine, Broadview, 1999.
Mythological frontispiece to the "New Atlantis", showing three female figures. Astrea, goddess of justice, sits on a cloud holding her scales and sword, bare-breasted Truth deploys her trumpet in mid air, and Virtue reclines on earth in the guise of the Duchess of Ormonde. An inscription invokes "Sacred Truth" and the reforming power of satire.

Milestones

About 1670

DM was probably born this year in the island of Jersey, if not at sea between there and Guernsey.
This account is from Ros Ballaster in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Estimates of her birth date have fluctuated from seven years before this to several years afterwards, and she has been said to have been born in Holland.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Duff, Dolores Diane Clarke. Materials Toward a Biography of Mary Delariviere Manley. Indiana University Press, 1965.
14
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

After July 1694

Living in the country with very little knowledge of the theatre, DM wrote (in seven days, she said) The Lost Lover; or, The Jealous Husband, A Comedy.
Manley, Delarivier. The Lost Lover. R. Bentley, F. Saunders, J. Knapton, and R. Wellington, 1696.
preface
Manley, Delarivier. “Editorial Materials”. A Woman of No Character: An Autobiography of Mrs Manley, edited by Fidelis Morgan, Faber, 1986, p. various pages.
74, 167

26 May-October 1709

DM published anonymously, in two successive volumes, her secret history or political scandal fiction Secret Memoirs from the New Atalantis.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2025, 22 vols. plus supplements.
Feminist Companion Archive.

3 September 1709

Between the first and second volumes of the New Atalantis, Steele attacked DM in Tatler no. 63 (not for the first time) as dispensing poison with her tongue.
McDowell, Paula. The Women of Grub Street: Press, Politics, and Gender in the London Literary Marketplace, 1678-1730. Clarendon, 1998.
279

9 October 1709

The printer and publisher of DM 's New Atalantis were arrested.
Manley, Delarivier. “Introduction”. New Atalantis, edited by Ros Ballaster, Pickering and Chatto, 1991, p. v - xxviii.
vi

29 October-5 November 1709

DM was imprisoned (to rescue, she said, the printer and publisher of her New Atalantis) until she was bailed.
Ballaster, Ros. “Early Women Writers: Lives and Times. Delarivier Manley (c. 1663-1724)”. The Female Spectator (1995-), Vol.
5
, No. 1, 1 Mar.–31 May 2001, pp. 2-5.
4

11 February 1710

DM was tried for libel on account of her New Atalantis, but discharged.
Manley, Delarivier. “Introduction”. New Atalantis, edited by Ros Ballaster, Pickering and Chatto, 1991, p. v - xxviii.
xv

1721

A political scandal-novel or secret history published in London as originally by Madame d'Aulnoy re-used DM 's title: Bribery in Perfection . . . being fresh Advices from the new Atalantis.
OCLC WorldCat. 1992–1998, http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

11 July 1724

DM died early in the morning, of what were diagnosed as fits of cholic.
Ballaster, Ros. “Early Women Writers: Lives and Times. Delarivier Manley (c. 1663-1724)”. The Female Spectator (1995-), Vol.
5
, No. 1, 1 Mar.–31 May 2001, pp. 2-5.
4

By June 1784

The publisher Kearsley issued an anonymous secret history or scandal fiction entitled The Modern Atalantis set in the island of Libertusia; DM , the obvious model, was not mentioned in the Critical Review's notice.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
57 (1784): 480

Biography

Birth and Family

About 1670

DM was probably born this year in the island of Jersey, if not at sea between there and Guernsey.
This account is from Ros Ballaster in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Estimates of her birth date have fluctuated from seven years before this to several years afterwards, and she has been said to have been born in Holland.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Duff, Dolores Diane Clarke. Materials Toward a Biography of Mary Delariviere Manley. Indiana University Press, 1965.
14
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Please click on login button to check your access and/or enter your credentials. Alternatively if you don’t have access, please click on “Subscribe”.

Log inSubscribe