Mary Taylor

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A committed proponent of female economic independence, MT was the author of some twenty articles on this and other feminist topics for Emily Faithfull 's Victoria Magazine during the 1860s and 1870s. Many of these polemic essays were reprinted in volume form in The First Duty of Women in 1870. The issue of women's work was also central to Taylor's only novel—a text she took more than forty years to write: Miss Miles (1890). In addition, MT collaborated with four other women to write a Swiss travel memoir in 1875.

Milestones

26 February 1817

MT was born at Gomersal in Yorkshire.
Taylor, Mary. Mary Taylor, Friend of Charlotte Brontë: Letters from New Zealand and Elsewhere. Editor Stevens, Joan, Auckland University Press; Oxford University Press.
1

1865-1877

MT published more than twenty articles, primarily addressing issues surrounding women, work, and economic independence, in Emily Faithfull 's Victoria Magazine.
Murray, Janet Horowitz. “The First Duty of Women: Mary Taylor’s Writings in <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>Victoria Magazine</span&gt”;. Victorian Periodicals Review, Vol.
22
, No. 4, pp. 141-7.
142, 147

1 March 1893

MT died at her house, High Royd in Gomersal, of a stroke.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Biography

Charlotte Brontë gave her these three nicknames.
Taylor, Mary. Mary Taylor, Friend of Charlotte Brontë: Letters from New Zealand and Elsewhere. Editor Stevens, Joan, Auckland University Press; Oxford University Press.
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Birth