Lady Mary Walker

08 May 1736 - 01 February 1821

Writing in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, LMW was a didactic novelist who cared for social issues and for personal morality, privileging the discussion of such issues and the communication of information over narrative or plot. The extent of her publication is unclear: three extant novels in English, one in French, and another in English which seems not to survive, plus an alleged pamphlet. Her views are conservative and very cautiously feminist. She admires learning in women and wishes more of them to pursue it, but she endorses the absolute rights of fathers to their children's obedience. Although she strongly paints the unjust suffering inflicted on women in unhappy marriages, she does not advocate resistance.

Milestones

8 May 1736

Lady Mary Leslie (later LMW ) was born at Melville House near Cupar in Fife; she was the youngest daughter out of seven children.

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

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.

By March 1776

Calling herself a Lady, LMW published her first identified novel, Letters from the Duchess de Crui and Others.

Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press.

1: 250

By April 1778

LMW published her best-known work, Munster Village, A Novel, a utopian, part-epistolary, didactic work.

Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press.

1: 270-1

1810

LMW, as Lady Mary Hamilton, published the novel in French with which Charles Nodier had been assisting her: La famille du duc de Popoli.

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

About February 1821

Lady Mary Hamilton (formerly LMW ) died at Exeter. Her will was proved in July 1822.

Ewan, Elizabeth et al. The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women : From the Earliest Times to 2004. Edinburgh University Press.

Saint, Andrew. “Diary: Foscolo’s Grave”. London Review of Books, pp. 34-5.

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

Biography

Birth and Family

8 May 1736

Lady Mary Leslie (later LMW ) was born at Melville House near Cupar in Fife; she was the youngest daughter out of seven children.

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

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.