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.
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...
Literary responses
Phebe Gibbes
This novel aroused much interest. One letter was reprinted almost entire, without attribution, on 2 July 1789 in the Aberdeen Magazine as a Picture of the Mode of living at Calcutta. In a letter from...
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/.
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
).
Hutton, Catherine. Oakwood Hall. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown.
3: 95
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Inchbald
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.
18
This year Inchbald was indeed reading sentimental novels...
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.
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...
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...
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...
