Mary Ann Radcliffe

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MAR wrote her feminist tract The Female Advocate from personal indignation at women's inferior earning opportunities, and her Memoirs from a wish to tell the tale of her woes and struggles. The two are not so distant as at first may seem, since they deal with the same predicament. MAR also wrote poetry; but the bunch of heterogeneous fictions attributed to her were mostly listed as by Mrs Ann Radcliffe or Mrs Radcliffe (presumably as an unscrupulous maketing ploy) before the form Mary Anne was applied to them. It is unlikely, though not impossible, that any of them was the work of the same person who wrote the feminist tract and the memoir.

Milestones

18 June 1746

Mary Clayton, who later wrote as MAR , was baptised in St Nicholas' Church at Nottingham, the elder of two daughters, and the sole survivor.
Ashfield, Andrew. Email to Isobel Grundy about Mary Anne Radcliffe.

Probably after January 1792

MAR says she began work this year on the feminist manifesto which became The Female Advocate.
Radcliffe, Mary Ann. The Memoirs of Mrs. Mary Ann Radcliffe. Printed for the author.
393, 396
Feminist Companion Archive.

1807

MAR dated the first four of the letters which make up her Memoirs.
Radcliffe, Mary Ann. The Memoirs of Mrs. Mary Ann Radcliffe. Printed for the author.
1ff
Feminist Companion Archive.

9 February 1810

MAR , after interruptions from sickness and weariness, pressed on with her Memoirs.
Radcliffe, Mary Ann. The Memoirs of Mrs. Mary Ann Radcliffe. Printed for the author.
129
Feminist Companion Archive.

After July 1810

MAR published by subscription, at Edinburgh, Scotland, Memoirs . . . in Familiar Letters to her Female Friend.
Radcliffe, Mary Ann. The Memoirs of Mrs. Mary Ann Radcliffe. Printed for the author.
Feminist Companion Archive.
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.

Shortly before 6 August 1818

MAR died in Lochend Close, Canongate, Edinburgh, of a decline. Since her son Joseph is known to have lived later in East Lochend's Close, it may be that she died in his house.
Ashfield, Andrew. Email to Isobel Grundy about Mary Anne Radcliffe.
Radcliffe, Mary Ann. The Memoirs of Mrs. Mary Ann Radcliffe. Printed for the author.
540

Biography

Birth and Background

18 June 1746

Mary Clayton, who later wrote as MAR , was baptised in St Nicholas' Church at Nottingham, the elder of two daughters, and the sole survivor.
Ashfield, Andrew. Email to Isobel Grundy about Mary Anne Radcliffe.

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