Elizabeth Singer Rowe

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Standard Name: Rowe, Elizabeth Singer
Birth Name: Elizabeth Singer
Married Name: Elizabeth Rowe
Pseudonym: Philomela
Pseudonym: The Pindarick Lady
Pseudonym: The Pindarical Lady
Pseudonym: The Author of Friendship in Death
ESR wrote witty, topical, satirical poetry during the 1690s, followed later in life by letters, essays, fiction (often epistolary), and a wide range of poetic modes, often though not invariably with a moral or religious emphasis. Her reputation as a moral and devotional writer during her lifetime and for some time afterwards stood extremely high. Current critical debate is establishing the element of proto-feminist or amatory fiction (what Paula Backscheider calls experimental, subversive, and transgressive) in her prose against the didactic-devotional element.
Backscheider, Paula R. Elizabeth Singer Rowe and the Development of the English Novel. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.
Transcription by Elizabeth Carter of a poem by Elizabeth Rowe, on paper surrounded by a deep blue background. "To Lady Brooke" reads in part: "your Looks appear / Artless as Virtue undisguised & clear / Bright as your sparkling Wit your lovely Eyes / Like that they please . . . .”

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Anthologization Sarah Lady Pennington
An Unfortunate Mother's Advice to her Absent Daughters quickly became a staple of composite volumes directed toward young women's conduct. At Edinburgh a volume of this kind, Instructions for a Young Lady, in every sphere...
Education Frances Seymour Countess of Hertford
Frances became well versed in most kinds of books, as well as good at dancing.
qtd. in
Hughes, Helen Sard. The Gentle Hertford, Her Life and Letters. Macmillan, 1940.
7
Her books included history, theology, and romances—almost every subject except philosophy. Her father had taught Italian to the poet...
Education Eliza Fletcher
Grandmother Brudend and a paternal aunt educated Eliza with poetry and stories. The letters of Elizabeth Singer Rowe were important in her reading. It was said, however, that her grandmother over-encouraged her in precocious display...
Family and Intimate relationships Frances Seymour Countess of Hertford
The writer Elizabeth Singer Rowe was, says a recent commentator, like an honorary aunt to the young Frances Thynne.
Kennedy, Deborah. Poetic Sisters. Early Eighteenth-Century Women Poets. Bucknell University Press, 2013.
14
Family and Intimate relationships Elizabeth Graeme Ferguson
Her mother, born Ann Diggs, was stepdaughter of the first colonial governor of Pennsylvania. Ann died in 1765, and like Elizabeth Singer Rowe (and Richardson 's Clarissa) she left posthumous letters for delivery after her death.
Garraty, John A., and Mark C. Carnes, editors. American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 1999, 24 vols.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
Family and Intimate relationships Elizabeth Thomas
He had published a poem in praise of Elizabeth Singer , and wrote to ET after her first publication.
Lipking, Joanna. “Fair Originals: Women Poets in Male Commendatory Poems”. Studies in the Eighteenth Century: Papers Presented at the . . . David Nichol Smith Memorial Seminar, Vol.
7
, No. 12:2, 1988, pp. 58-72.
67, 71n19
He was a Welsh barrister, son of a close friend of ET's maternal...
Friends, Associates Catherine Talbot
CT met the widowed Duchess of Somerset (better known by her former title of Lady Hertford ), who had been a patron of Elizabeth (Singer) Rowe , and was herself an amateur writer.
Myers, Sylvia Harcstark. The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship, and the Life of the Mind in Eighteenth-Century England. Clarendon, 1990.
215
Friends, Associates Frances Seymour Countess of Hertford
The young Frances Thynne grew up in a literary ambience. Her early friends included Frances Worsley, later Lady Carteret (who apparently patronised women writers later, when her husband was Viceroy of Ireland). Family friends from...
Friends, Associates Frances Seymour Countess of Hertford
Lady Hertford wrote that a certain distrust of her own judgement made her slow in the choice of a friend; but when that choice is made, my attachments are too strong to be easily broken...
Friends, Associates Penelope Aubin
It is not known that PA had writing friends or moved in literary circles.
Though the Feminist Companion and other sources call her a friend of Elizabeth Singer Rowe , this is based on a...
Friends, Associates Anne Finch
AF enjoyed personal friendships with a number of distinguished men, among them Bishop Thomas Ken . She valued female friendship very highly; women friends figure prominently in her poetry. Lady Catherine Jones , to whom...
Friends, Associates Mary Chandler
MC seems to have become the real friend of several women of higher rank than herself, some of whom moved from the position of her customers to that of her patrons: they included Lady Hertford
Intertextuality and Influence Harriet Corp
The preface discusses what makes a religious novel. Corp suspects her work is not a novel because of its lack of a love-plot. But if she must be classed with novel-writers, she will submit with...
Intertextuality and Influence Charlotte McCarthy
Her Letters Moral and Entertaining seem written on the model of Elizabeth Singer Rowe 's Friendship in Death. One is from a departed Spirit, to his Friend in this World.
McCarthy, Charlotte. Justice and Reason. printed for the author, 1767.
202
Those to Clara...
Intertextuality and Influence Catherine Talbot
Her recent visit to the Duchess of Somerset (formerly Lady Hertford, whose little grandson and great-nephew were the good and naughty boys of the story) had exposed her to the influence of Elizabeth Singer Rowe

Timeline

22 November 1599: Edward Fairfax licensed with the Stationers'...

Writing climate item

22 November 1599

Edward Fairfax licensed with the Stationers' Company his Godfrey of Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Jerusalem, his translation of Gerusalemme Liberata by Torquato Tasso (1581), which was published in 1600.
Burrow, Colin. “I Don’t Know Whats”. London Review of Books, 22 Feb. 2001, pp. 12-13.
12-13
Cox, Michael, editor. The Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press, 2002, 2 vols.

25 June 1652: Eliza's Babes, or The Virgins-Offering, a...

Women writers item

25 June 1652

Eliza's Babes, or The Virgins-Offering, a book of poetry, was published now (according to George Thomason ): the work of an anonymous Lady, who onely desires to advance the glory of God, and not...

1670: Les Pensées de M. Pascal sur la réligion,...

Writing climate item

1670

Les Pensées de M. Pascal sur la réligion, et sur quelques autres sujets was posthumously published: it takes the form of a collection of aphorisms and very brief essays.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

By May 1754: John Duncombe published The Feminiad. A Poem,...

Building item

By May 1754

John Duncombe published The Feminiad. A Poem, which celebrates the achievements of women writers with strict attention to their support for conventional morality.
Griffiths, Ralph, 1720 - 1803, and George Edward Griffiths, editors. Monthly Review. R. Griffiths.
10: 371-2

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...

After 1 February 1785: M. Peddle (a gifted, little-known, Evangelical...

Women writers item

After 1 February 1785

M. Peddle (a gifted, little-known, Evangelical woman of Yeovil in Somerset, who later issued a conduct book under the name of Cornelia) published a biblical paraphrase in novelistic style: The Life of Jacob.
Peddle, M. The Life of Jacob. R. Goadby and Co., 1785.

June 1793: An enterprising printer and freemason, John...

Writing climate item

June 1793

An enterprising printer and freemason, John Wharlton Bunney , put out the first number of The Free-Mason's Magazine, or General and Complete Library.
Snell, Susan. “Enlightenment Females and Freemasonry”. Journal for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism, Vol.
4
, No. 1-2, 2013.

Texts

Rowe, Elizabeth Singer. Devout Exercises of the Heart. R. Hett, 1738.
Rowe, Elizabeth Singer. Friendship in Death. T. Worrall, 1728.
Rowe, Elizabeth Singer. Friendship in Death. T. Worrall, 1733.
Rowe, Elizabeth Singer, and Josephine Grieder. Friendship in Death. Garland Edition, Garland Publishing, 1972.
Rowe, Elizabeth Singer. Letters Moral and Entertaining. T. Worrall, 1732, 3 vols.
Rowe, Elizabeth Singer. Philomela: or, Poems by Mrs. Elizabeth Singer (now Rowe). E. Curll, 1736.
Rowe, Elizabeth Singer. Poems on Several Occasions. John Dunton, 1696.
Rowe, Elizabeth Singer, and Torquato Tasso. Select Translations from Tasso’s Jerusalem. E. Curll, 1738.
Rowe, Elizabeth Singer. The History of Joseph. A Poem. T. Worrall, 1736.
Rowe, Elizabeth Singer. The Miscellaneous Works in Prose and Verse of Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe. Editor Rowe, Theophilus, R. Hett and R. Dodsley, 1739, 2 vols.
Rowe, Elizabeth Singer. The Poetry of Elizabeth Singer Rowe (1674-1737). Editor Marshall, Madeleine Forell, Edwin Mellen Press, 1987.
Rowe, Elizabeth Singer, and Thomas Rowe. The Works of Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe. J. and A. Arch, 1796, 4 vols.