Mary Mollineux

01 January 1651 - 03 January 1696

MM , a Quaker of the later seventeenth century, wrote in prose and poetry all her life. Her surviving prose consists of religious meditations and letters; her poetry, also centred on God and her faith, shows an interest in literary form and a skilled command of style. A cousin collected and published a volume of her writings after her death.

Milestones

Probably 1651

Mary Southworth, later MM , was born an only child, most probably in a part of Lancashire which has now been redesignated as Cheshire.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Owen, Frances, and Mary Mollineux. “A Testimony Concerning My Dear Friend and Cousin, Mary Mollineux, Deceased”. Fruits of Retirement, T. Sowle, pp. A2 - A6v.

1663

This year is the earliest date that MM gave to any of her surviving poems, which means she wrote poetry at about the age of twelve. The poem in question, On the Fall of Man, placed first in her collected volume, is orthodox in doctrine and well expressed, giving no hint that its author was a child.

Mollineux, Mary. Fruits of Retirement. T. Sowle.

9-10

About 1 December 1695

A week before the onset of her last illness, MM asked her husband to write down for her a couplet she had composed, in Latin, about virtue and its rewards.

Mollineux, Henry, and Mary Mollineux. “A Testimony Concerning my Late Wife Mary Mollineux, Deceased [and other pieces]”. Fruits of Retirement, T. Sowle, p. A8v - C2v.

3 January 1696

MM died in Liverpool, aged only forty-four, quietly, without any Noise, Sigh, or Groan.

This was the Quaker date: third of the eleventh month, 1695.

Mollineux, Henry, and Mary Mollineux. “A Testimony Concerning my Late Wife Mary Mollineux, Deceased [and other pieces]”. Fruits of Retirement, T. Sowle, p. A8v - C2v.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

1702

Seven years after MM died, her Fruits of Retirement: or Miscellaneous Poems, Moral and Divine was published by Tace Sowle (the leading Quaker printer): she had been urged to print, but believed that would be to seek human praise, which she felt not free

Mollineux, Henry, and Mary Mollineux. “A Testimony Concerning my Late Wife Mary Mollineux, Deceased [and other pieces]”. Fruits of Retirement, T. Sowle, p. A8v - C2v.

to do.

Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.

British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

Biography

Birth and Background

Probably 1651

Mary Southworth, later MM , was born an only child, most probably in a part of Lancashire which has now been redesignated as Cheshire.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Owen, Frances, and Mary Mollineux. “A Testimony Concerning My Dear Friend and Cousin, Mary Mollineux, Deceased”. Fruits of Retirement, T. Sowle, pp. A2 - A6v.