Frances Brooke

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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.
Photograph of the painting of Frances Brooke by Catherine Read, c. 1771. She is seated, with one elbow resting on a table and her head resting on that hand, while her other hand lies on an open book in her lap. She is wearing a dress in yellow and orange, and a green shawl draped around her shoulders.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Textual Features Elizabeth Postuma Simcoe
EPS has an eye for picturesque scenes, which she describes as set pieces as well as sketching as an artist. Examples are the group formed by a servant and a native each knee-deep in a...
Friends, Associates Frances Sheridan
In London they quickly acquired an influential and highly talented circle of friends, including Samuel Johnson , Samuel Richardson , Edward Young , Frances Brooke , Sarah Scott , and Sarah Fielding . Richardson admired...
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.
36-7, 71
She was on terms...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Susanna Haswell Rowson
In this humorous poem the author draws on her first-hand knowledge, as an actor and singer, with the London stage. She marshals thirty-four of it actors and writers to appear before Apollo, who metes out...
Occupation Mary Robinson
MR , under a heavy cloak of anonymity, opened her last theatre season, at Covent Garden Theatre (playing in the mainpiece but apparently not in Frances Brooke 's Rosina, which followed it).
Highfill, Philip H. et al. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press.
13: 35
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press.
5: 582
Literary responses Radagunda Roberts
A reviewer (who supposed that the author was male) judged this work a useful further abridgement of an existing abridgement, suitable for young ladies at school.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Frances Brooke mentioned it to Richard Gifford as a...
Textual Production Radagunda Roberts
RR 's version of the Abbé Millot 's Elements of the History of France (abridged) coincided with that by her friend Frances Brooke of his History of England.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
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...
Wealth and Poverty Radagunda Roberts
She left the stock, the house, and several keepsakes to her sister, to her nephew Alfred William both her inkstand and her copy of John Hawkesworth 's translation of Fénelon 's Télémaque (apparently recognizing William...
Intertextuality and Influence Samuel Richardson
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
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...
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.
4: 1928ff
She became the first successful female novelist of her generation to break into theatre, as Frances Sheridan
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Anna Margaretta Larpent
Criticism has an even freer rein in the later than in the earlier diaries. In 1790 AML found Mariana Starke 's unpublished The British Orphans indelicate and Starke 's The Widow of Malabar showy but...
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...
Performance of text Elizabeth Inchbald
EI 's farce or comedy Animal Magnetism (advertised on 23 April, but postponed) came on at Covent Garden, accompanying Frances Brooke 's Rosina.
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press.
5: 1059, 1060

Timeline

By 22 May 1755: George Colman and Bonnell Thornton edited...

Women writers item

By 22 May 1755

George Colman and Bonnell Thornton edited and published an anthology entitled Poems by Eminent Ladies.

1 November 1755: A major earthquake at Lisbon in Portugal...

National or international item

1 November 1755

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 London Foundling Hospital was granted...

Building item

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...

Building item

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'...

Writing climate item

1768

The second of the two leading subscribers' or metropolitan libraries opened in Leeds.

April 1774: The Monthly Review, in a notice on Hannah...

Women writers item

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...

Writing climate item

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...

Building item

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. et al. “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.
Brooke, Frances. Virginia. A. Millar, 1756.