Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Delarivier Manley
-
Standard Name: Manley, Delarivier
Birth Name: Delarivier Manley
Married Name: Delarivier Manley
Nickname: Dela
Indexed Name: Mary de la Riviere Manley
Indexed Name: Mary Delarivier Manley
Pseudonym: Melpomene
Pseudonym: Thalia
Pseudonym: Delia
Pseudonym: The Translator of the New Atalantis
Pseudonym: Rivella
Used Form: Delarivière Manley
DM
was a pioneer in many fields: poetry, drama, journalism, and fiction, and the genres with which the fiction of her period interlocked: letters, soft pornography, satire, secret history, romance autobiography, and political polemic. She was proud of being first in the field on the Tory side during the pamphlet wars of Queen Anne's reign. As critic Paula McDowell
remarks, her writing identity was shaped by the new concept of print culture as an industry, an employer of labour.
McDowell, Paula. The Women of Grub Street: Press, Politics, and Gender in the London Literary Marketplace, 1678-1730. Clarendon.
The Tatler fastens on Astell's age, her virginity, and her assumed incompetence in practical or worldly matters. A further attack followed on 3 September, which linked her name with those of Elstob
and Manley
Intertextuality and Influence
Penelope Aubin
The Life and Amorous Adventures of Lucinda, PA
's only novel told in the first person, takes place partly at Constantinople in Turkey, where Lucinda is sold as a slave after behaving with...
Publishing
Marie-Catherine d' Aulnoy
This was a translation of her Mémoires de la cour d'Angleterre (1694). No copies have been traced, but Mrs William Henry Arthur
published a new translation of the original French in 1912.
Palmer, Melvin D. “Madame d’Aulnoy in England”. Comparative Literature, Vol.
27
, pp. 237-53.
251, 253
It...
Reception
Aphra Behn
An anonymous Young Lady (most probably Delarivier Manley
) published a pindaric elegy on AB
, along with another by Nathaniel Lee
.
Mendelson, Sara Heller. The Mental World of Stuart Women: Three Studies. Harvester Press.
182, 216n176
Spencer, Jane. Aphra Behn’s Afterlife. Oxford University Press.
30-1
Education
Elizabeth Boyd
EB
says nothing about how she learned the things she knew—an acquaintance with English literature, some history, and at least a smattering of French and Latin—but she may well have been largely self-taught. She often...
Textual Features
Elizabeth Boyd
EB
offers original, discriminating praise for women's writing: Susanna Centlivre
(her inspiration, she says), Eliza Haywood
(though she regrets her exposure of women's faults), Aphra Behn
, and Delarivier Manley
, whom she calls the...
Textual Production
Elizabeth Boyd
She dedicated it to her patron Lady Hertford
. The British Library
copy is 12604 ccc. 7. Harvard University
holds the only known copy of an undated set of subscription proposals, which is headed Any...
Literary responses
Elizabeth Boyd
Heather Harper
acknowledges that this is a conservative text, in that it lacks the drive of Delarivier Manley
, for instance, to lambast the vices of high life. She notes, however, that Boyd celebrates secularised...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Jane Brereton
The book opens, like other posthumous collections, with a biographical memoir, in this case by JB
's daughter Charlotte, who reinforces the poet's own positioning of herself as Welsh, female, and modest. Envisaging potential hostility...
Intertextuality and Influence
Lady Charlotte Bury
Sydney Morgan
remarked with gusto: The murder is out!
Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan,. Lady Morgan’s Memoirs. Editors Dixon, William Hepworth and Geraldine Jewsbury, AMS Press.
2: 431
She maintained that never since Delarivier Manley
's New Atalantis of 1709 (which probably few but herself had heard of by this date) had...
Textual Production
Susanna Centlivre
SC
contributed an elegy to The Nine Muses, the volume which Delarivier Manley
edited on the death of John Dryden
.
Bowyer, John Wilson. The Celebrated Mrs Centlivre. Duke University Press.
SC
had an important role in George Ballard
's pioneering work of women's history and women's biography. She introduced him to an even more important influence, Elizabeth Elstob
; she helped in his research; and...
Literary responses
Sarah Chapone
SC
's friend and printer Richardson
saw her project in a different and far more simple light than she did: as the administering by a good woman of an antidote to the Poison shed by...
Publishing
Mary Davys
Alexander Pope
is listed first among non-aristocratic subscribers; others include Soame Jenyns
, Mrs Duncombe (probably mother of the later writer Susanna Duncombe), and John Barber (partner of the late Delarivier Manley
). The Bodleian Library
Timeline
About 1349-1351: Giovanni Boccaccio worked at his cycle of...
Writing climate item
About 1349-1351
Giovanni Boccaccio
worked at his cycle of tales entitled (from the fact that the stories are told over the course of ten days) the Decameron. It was first translated into English in 1620.
1669: G. J. Guilleragues published, anonymously,...
Writing climate item
1669
G. J. Guilleragues
published, anonymously, Lettres portugaises (sometimes called Letters of a Portuguese Nun).
1705-14: Robert Harley worked to establish a nationwide...
National or international item
1705-14
Robert Harley
worked to establish a nationwide system of government intelligence and propaganda.
2 April 1705: Bernard Mandeville published The Grumbling...
Writing climate item
2 April 1705
Bernard Mandeville
published The Grumbling Hive (later expanded as The Fable of the Bees).
8 July 1709-31 March 1710: The thrice-weekly Female Tatler appeared,...
Women writers item
8 July 1709-31 March 1710
The thrice-weekly Female Tatler appeared, an explicitly woman-centred riposte to the condescending or gender-prejudiced element in Richard Steele
's still-new Tatler.
3 August 1710: The Examiner, or, Remarks upon Papers and...
Writing climate item
3 August 1710
The Examiner, or, Remarks upon Papers and Occurrences was launched by Jonathan Swift
with the express intention of examining and correcting false statements from other periodicals; it ran until 1716
19 May 1720: A New Miscellany, edited by Anthony Hammond,...
19 September 1735: A proposal was published for a series or...
Writing climate item
19 September 1735
A proposal was published for a series or periodical to be entitled The Weekly Novelist, a Collection of the Best Novels.
16 October 1750-April 1753: Christopher Smart and John Newbery, under...
Writing climate item
16 October 1750-April 1753
Christopher Smart
and John Newbery
, under the persona of Mary Midnight, issued a periodical entitled The Midwife; or, Old Woman's Magazine; they acknowledge the influence of Delarivier Manley
.
By 1761: Harris's List of Covent-garden Ladies: Or,...
Building item
By 1761
Harris's List of Covent-garden Ladies: Or, New Atlantis, a directory of prostitutes, was being printed annually under this title.
1814: John Colin Dunlop published The History of...
Writing climate item
1814
John Colin Dunlop
published The History of Fiction: Being a Critical Account of the Most Celebrated Prose Works of Fiction, from the Earliest Greek Romances to the Novels of the Present Age.
Texts
Manley, Delarivier. A Learned Comment upon Dr. Hare’s Excellent Sermon. John Morphew, 1711.
Manley, Delarivier. A Modest Enquiry into the Reasons of the Joy Expressed. John Morphew, 1714.
Manley, Delarivier. A True Narrative of What Pass’d at the Examination of the Marquis de Guiscard. Editor Swift, Jonathan, John Morphew, 1711.
Manley, Delarivier. A True Relation of the Several Facts and Circumstances of the Intended Riot and Tumult on Queen Elizabeth’s Birth-day. John Morphew, 1711.
Manley, Delarivier. Almyna. William Turner and Egbert Sanger, 1707.
Manley, Delarivier. Court Intrigues. J. Morphew and J. Woodward, 1711.
Manley, Delarivier. “Editorial Materials”. A Woman of No Character: An Autobiography of Mrs Manley, edited by Fidelis Morgan, Faber, 1986, p. various pages.
Manley, Delarivier. “Introduction”. The Novels of Mary Delarivière Manley, edited by Patricia Köster, Scholars’ Facsimilies and Reprints, 1971, p. v - xxviii.
Manley, Delarivier. “Introduction”. New Atalantis, edited by Ros Ballaster, Pickering and Chatto, 1991, p. v - xxviii.
Manley, Delarivier. “Introduction”. The Adventures of Rivella, edited by Katherine Zelinsky, Broadview, 1999, pp. 9-38.
Manley, Delarivier. Letters Written by Mrs. Manley. R. B., 1696.
Manley, Delarivier. Lucius. Printed for John Barber; sold by Benjamin Tooke, Henry Clements, and John Walthoe, Junior, 1717.
Manley, Delarivier. Memoirs of Europe. John Morphew, 1710.
Aulnoy, Marie-Catherine d’, and Delarivier Manley. Memoirs of the Court of England. B. Bragg, 1707.
Manley, Delarivier. New Atalantis. J. Morphew and J. Woodward, 1709.
Manley, Delarivier. New Atalantis. Editor Ballaster, Ros, Pickering and Chatto, 1991.
Manley, Delarivier. The Adventures of Rivella. 1714.
Manley, Delarivier. The Adventures of Rivella. Editor Zelinsky, Katherine, Broadview, 1999.
Manley, Delarivier. The Duke of M——h’s Vindication. 1711.
Manley, Delarivier, editor. The Examiner. John Morphew.
Manley, Delarivier. The Honour and Prerogative of the Queen’s Majesty Vindicated. John Morphew, 1713.
Manley, Delarivier, and Marie-Catherine d’ Aulnoy. “The Lady’s Pacquet of Letters”. Memoirs of the Court of England, B. Bragg, 1707.
Manley, Delarivier. The Lost Lover. R. Bentley, F. Saunders, J. Knapton, and R. Wellington, 1696.
Manley, Delarivier. The New Atalantis. Editor Ballaster, Ros, Penguin, 1992.
Manley, Delarivier, editor. The Nine Muses. Richard Basset, 1700.