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.
Photograph of a line engraving of Elizabeth Singer Rowe by George Vertue, 1725, shown from the waist up, wearing a simple dark dress with a low scooped neckline. Her hair is tied back with a lock appearing over one shoulder. The oval frame (contained within a rectangle) bears her name, "Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe", and is topped with emblems including a sprig of laurel and a crown; a further swag of emblematic objects below includes flowers, sheets of inscribed paper, and the trumpet of Fame.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Textual Production Susanna Watts
SW worked hard for three months at translating Tasso 's Jerusalem and Verri 's Roman Nights; she had already done some translation from Tasso in about 1786.
Elizabeth Singer Rowe , too, had translated from Tasso's Jerusalem.
Watts, Susanna. Scrapbook.
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.
Aucott, Shirley. Susanna Watts (1768 to 1842): author of Leicester’s first guide, abolitionist and bluestocking. Shirley Aucott.
12
Textual Features Susanna Watts
Ephemera of all kinds have been bound in: family anecdotes, a letter of William Cowper of 1788, a Hindu Primer (or alphabet), a railway ticket of 1839, women's parliamentary petitions against slavery of 1833 (one...
Occupation Elizabeth Tipper
After this period ET 's prospects improved, to include employment, social life, and Honourable Friendship, but then another dark cloud intervened.
Tipper, Elizabeth. The Pilgrim’s Viaticum. Printed by J. Wilkins.
20
At the time of publication she was working hard, since she spent...
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, pp. 58-72.
67, 71n19
He was a Welsh barrister, son of a close friend of ET's maternal...
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
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.
215
Intertextuality and Influence Anne Steele
AS was said to have begun writing poetry at a very early age.
Steele, Anne. The Works of Mrs. Anne Steele. Munroe, Francis and Parker.
prelims
Her surviving works show the influence of Elizabeth Singer Rowe , who shares her heightened devotional style in both verse and...
Textual Features Elizabeth Smith
Smith's preface, which discusses theology and Klopstock's admiration for Elizabeth Singer Rowe , clearly indicates a hope of publishing. The body of the book consists chiefly the Klopstock letters, including those addressed by him to...
Residence Mary Scott
In 1788, after her marriage, MS and her husband moved to Ilminster in Somerset, where they lived in the house formerly occupied by the poet and (in Anna Seward's words) dear fascinating enthusiastic saint...
Intertextuality and Influence Sarah Savage
The diary also records SS 's delight in such biographical religious texts as the Lives of Mrs. Bury , Mrs. Rowe , Mrs. Walker .
Williams, Sir John Bickerton, and Sarah Savage. Memoirs of the Life and Character of Mrs. Sarah Savage. Holdsworth and Ball.
30
Women's writing on pious topics was important to her...
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...
Textual Features Sarah, Lady Pennington
She advises about relations with servants, about prompt payment of bills, and other aspects of running a complicated household. She says there will always be vacant Hours to fill up with reading,
Sarah, Lady Pennington,. An Unfortunate Mother’s Advice to her Absent Daughters. W. Bristow and C. Ethrington.
38
and offers...
Textual Features Sarah, Lady Pennington
Yet another thread relates an inset story, The Adventures of Alphonso, after the destruction of Lisbon, related by himself, in a letter to his Brother, 1756; this fiction purports to be the first-fruits of...
Textual Features Susanna Haswell Rowson
The heroine, Meriel Howard (educated in a French convent, aged sixteen at the outset, correspondent of her school-friend Celia Shelburne) is not wholly free from error, yet provides a good model for a daughter, wife...
Textual Features Susanna Haswell Rowson
Contents include lives of Elizabeth Singer Rowe and of Mary Wollstonecraft (the latter reprinted from the Monthly Visitor of London). Among the poems (some of them specifically attributed to SHR ) are one entitled...

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.

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 her own.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Texts

Rowe, Elizabeth Singer. Devout Exercises of the Heart. R. Hett, 1738.
Rowe, Elizabeth Singer. Friendship in Death. T. Worrall, 1728.
Rowe, Elizabeth Singer, and Josephine Grieder. Friendship in Death. Garland Publishing, 1972.
Rowe, Elizabeth Singer. Letters Moral and Entertaining. T. Worrall, 1732.
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.
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.