Catharine Trotter

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Since the late twentieth century CT has been known chiefly for her early writings, shortly before and after the year 1700, which include tragedies, poetry, a comedy, and a short fiction. Though this first phase of her career overlaps with a later one (under two different names, birth-name and married name), they are clearly distinguishable. Characteristic of the later phase, during which she published as Catharine Cockburn, are weighty works of philosophy and theology, and familiar letters. Some of her letters reflect her intellectual pursuits; her personal and domestic letters have only recently come to notice.
Black and white photograph of a line engraving of Catharine Trotter by an unknown artist, shown from the waist up. She wears a simple dark dress with scooped neckline over a white ruffled chemise. Her light hair is brushed back and hangs down behind her shoulders. The oval portrait is placed as if set into a wall, with a plaque below bearing her married name : "Catharine Cockburn". National Portrait Gallery.
"Catharine Trotter" Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_Catharine_Cockburn.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

Probably 16 August 1674
CT was born in London, one of two daughters. The record of her baptism thirteen days after this looks reliable, though both her names are mis-spelled.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
After 8 April 1693
Olinda's Adventures; or, The Amours of a Young Lady, a short epistolary novel generally ascribed to CT , appeared anonymously in Letters of Love and Gallantry, here titled The Adventures of a Young Lady.
This date is given to one of the makeweight letters added at the end of the volume, after Olinda's.
Greer, Germaine, Susan Hastings, Jeslyn Medoff, and Melinda Sansone, editors. Kissing the Rod. Virago, 1988.
406
By mid-1702
CT made her first anonymous foray into philosophical debate, with A Defence of the Essay of Human Understanding, Written by Mr. Lock.
Kelley, Anne. Catharine Trotter: An Early Modern Writer in the Vanguard of Feminism. Ashgate, 2002.
15 and n10
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online.
After 11 May 1749
Catharine Cockburn (formerly Trotter) died at Long Horsley, Northumberland, where she was buried. This was the day she made her will, being apparently too weak to sign for herself.
Kelley, Anne. Catharine Trotter: An Early Modern Writer in the Vanguard of Feminism. Ashgate, 2002.
269-70
Greer, Germaine, Susan Hastings, Jeslyn Medoff, and Melinda Sansone, editors. Kissing the Rod. Virago, 1988.
407

Biography

Birth and Family

Probably 16 August 1674
CT was born in London, one of two daughters. The record of her baptism thirteen days after this looks reliable, though both her names are mis-spelled.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.