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.
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...
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's unpublished The British Orphans indelicate and Starke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
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
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
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...
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/.
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
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...
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.
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...
