ML
, a mid-eighteenth-century woman living in the provinces, made no secret of writing for money. She is obsessive and wordy in style, interesting mainly for her dogged and persistent struggle to succeed. Her characteristic indignation springs partly from the influence of the Augustan satirists, partly from circumstances of her own life. She wrote and published in many genres: tragedy, translation and adaptation (now lost), satirical dialogue, essays and letters (both personal, critical, and political), and spoofs of all kinds, often burlesquing the very style she is writing. Though she mentions discrimination against her as a woman, she inclines towards anti-feminism herself.