Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Frances Brooke
-
Standard Name: Brooke, Frances
Birth Name: Frances Moore
Nickname: Fan
Nickname: Fanny
Married Name: Frances Brooke
Pseudonym: Mary Singleton, Spinster
Pseudonym: The Author of Lady Julia Mandeville
Used Form: Ariel
Used Form: Mrs Brooke
Used Form: Mrs Brookes
Used Form: the translator of Lady Catesby's Letters
FB
wrote in many genres during the latter half of the eighteenth century: drama and translation as well as an innovative feminist periodical. Best known are her three novels including the first realistic novel in English to be set in a colonial society of North America.
"Frances Brooke" Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Frances_Moore_Brooke_%281724-1789%29_by_Read.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.
William McCarthy, biographer of her famous aunt, suggests that she and her brother Edward may perhaps have been christened (with names not traditional in their family) after Ed...
Family and Intimate relationships
Elizabeth Gilding
Like her, he was a contributor to magazines: a juvenile work by him appeared in the Lady's Magazine in 1775, and he later contributed to the European and other magazines under the name of Fidelio...
Family and Intimate relationships
Elizabeth Heyrick
Her mother, born Elizabeth Cartwright
, was a remarkable woman. She became engaged to please her family, but her fiancé died. After this she visited London and stayed with the publisher Robert Dodsley
. While...
Friends, Associates
Samuel Johnson
Johnson had a talent for friendship which he kept well exercised: the names mentioned here represent only a selection of his friendships. His early London friends, whom he met during a comparatively poorly documented period...
Friends, Associates
Charlotte Lennox
She met Sarah Fielding
at Richardson's house, and became friendly also with Henry Fielding
, Saunders Welch
(the philanthropist, who later offered her employment), and Lord Orrery
. She was presumably the Mrs Lenox with...
Friends, Associates
Radagunda Roberts
Though very little is known of RR
's life, she was well acquainted with at least one other woman writer: Frances Brooke
(whose son attended St Paul's while Roberts's brother was High Master, and who...
Friends, Associates
Anna Seward
Nine years later her meeting with the provincial literary hostess Anne, Lady Miller
, marked the beginning of a wide and deep acquaintance with the literary world beyond Lichfield.
Ashmun, Margaret. The Singing Swan. Yale University Press; H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1931.
36-7, 71
She was on terms...
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Griffith
According to Frances Brooke
(in an anecdote hinting at self-importance in EG
) she chose this spot with a view to becoming better acquainted with the comedian Samuel Foote
—who, however, snubbed her in the...
Innumerable women novelists later conducted a dialogue (some admiring, some rebutting or revising) with SR
. Few could ignore his influence completely. Frances Brooke
wrote his biography; Anna Letitia Barbauld
edited his letters, and Jane Austen
Intertextuality and Influence
Catherine Hutton
Jane Oakwood says (presumably standing in for her author, as she often does) that in youth she was accused of imitating Juliet, Lady Catesby (Frances Brooke
's translation from Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni
).
John Philip Kemble
wrote the following May to ask after her progress. He imagined the story melodramatically, and enquired: how many distressed damsels and valorous knights?
Manvell, Roger. Elizabeth Inchbald: England’s Principal Woman Dramatist and Independent Woman of Letters in 18th Century London. University Press of America, 1987.
18
This year Inchbald was indeed reading sentimental novels...
Literary responses
Charlotte Lennox
This time Lennox had at least a moderate stage success, bringing her a welcome author's benefit night.
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960–1968.
4: 1928ff
She became the first successful female novelist of her generation to break into theatre, as Frances Sheridan
of both characters and domestic life. It did, however, feel that the new bride's death was too precipitate and that the heroic fortitude of...
Literary responses
Phebe Gibbes
The notice in the Critical Review opened condescendingly. Guessing that the author was female, it warned its readers: It seldom happens that ladies equal in genius to Lennox
, Brooke
s, and Scott
, figure...
A major earthquake at Lisbon in Portugal killed more than 10,000 people (estimates vary), provoking theological debate between Rousseau
and Voltaire
about the nature of evil.
2 June 1756
The LondonFoundling Hospital
was granted £10,000 on the condition of maintaining an open admissions policy.
21 February 1765
Frances Brooke
(as Mary Singleton) published a rebuke to two upper-class ladies for rudeness to the actress George Anne Bellamy
.
1768
The second of the two leading subscribers' or metropolitan libraries opened in Leeds.
April 1774
The Monthly Review, in a notice on Hannah More
's The Inflexible Captive, quoted some lines which transform the Muses from ancient Greece into the living female poets of Britain.
January 1781-December 1782
The Lady's Poetical Magazine, or Beauties of British Poetry appeared, published by James Harrison
in four half-yearly numbers; it is arguable whether or not it kept the first number's promise of generous selections of work...
6 December 1830
Lucia Vestris
became the first long-term female theatre manager of the century, when she reopened the Olympic Theatre
.
Texts
Brooke, Frances. All’s Right at Last; or, The History of Miss West. F. and J. Noble, 1774.
Edwards, Mary Jane, and Frances Brooke. “Editor’s Introduction”. The History of Emily Montague, Carleton University Press, 1985, p. xvii - lxxi.
Millot, Claude François Xavier. Elements of the History of England. Translator Brooke, Frances, J. Dodsley and T. Cadell, 1771.
Brooke, Frances. “Introduction”. The Excursion, edited by Paula R. Backscheider and Hope D. Cotton, University Press of Kentucky, 1997, p. ix - xlix.
Kaplan, Marijn S., Françoise de Graffigny, and Marie-Jeanne de Riccoboni. “Introduction”. Translations and Continuations: Riccoboni and Brooke, Graffigny and Roberts, translated by. Frances Brooke and Radagunda Roberts, Pickering and Chatto, 2015, p. i - xxix.
Riccoboni, Marie-Jeanne. Letters from Juliet, Lady Catesby, to Her Friend, Lady Henrietta Campley. Translator Brooke, Frances, R. and J. Dodsley, 1760.
Brooke, Frances. Marian. T. N. Longman and O. Rees, 1800.
Framéry, Nicolas Etienne. Memoirs of the Marquis de St. Forlaix. Translator Brooke, Frances, J. Dodsley, 1770.
Brooke, Frances. Rosina. T. Cadell, 1783.
Brooke, Frances. The Excursion. T. Cadell, 1777.
Brooke, Frances. The Excursion. Editors Backscheider, Paula R. and Hope D. Cotton, University Press of Kentucky, 1997.
Brooke, Frances. The History of Charles Mandeville. W. Lane, 1790.
Brooke, Frances. The History of Emily Montague. J. Dodsley, 1769.
Brooke, Frances. The History of Lady Julia Mandeville. R. and J. Dodsley, 1763.
Brooke, Frances. The Kenrickad. W. Griffin, 1772.
Brooke, Frances. The Old Maid. A. Millar.
Brooke, Frances. The Siege of Sinope. T. Cadell, 1781.
