Barbara Hofland

16 February 1770 - 04 November 1844

Standard Name: Hofland, Barbara

Birth Name: Barbara Wreaks

Married Name: Barbara Hoole

Married Name: Barbara Hofland

Pseudonym: An Old-Fashioned Englishman

Pseudonym: Benjamin Blunderhead, Esq.

Pseudonym: The Author of an Officer's Widow and her Young Family

Pseudonym: The Author of Says She to Her Neighbour, What?

In forty years of writing BH produced nearly seventy titles, not all discussed here (besides doubtful attributions). They include books for children or young adults and adult novels, with some poems, plays, guidebooks, and handbooks on artistic topics. More than 300,000 copies were sold in Britain and as many, proportionately to population, in the USA. Many were translated, covering most European languages.

Ramsay, Thomas. The Life and Literary Remains of Barbara Hofland. W. J. Cleaver, 1849.

viii

Though her titles fall naturally into groups, named (in later parlance branded) from family relationships (notably widows as struggling, successful single mothers), or virtues, or boys' careers in the expanding British empire, BH always varies her formulas. Her novels for the adult market are independent in their attitudes, expressing an original and thinking mind.

Full profile

Connections

Connections Sort descending	Author name	Excerpt
Dedications	Eliza Kirkham Mathews	There was another edition or issue at York. This second collection of EKM 's poems, divided into Sonnets, Elegies, Odes, and Ballads, reprints pieces both from her earlier collection and from her novel What...
Education	Christina Rossetti	Christina and her siblings were educated by their mother , in reading, writing, the Bible and rudimentary French. The boys were sent to school when they were seven, while the girls continued at home. Their...
Family and Intimate relationships	Maria Edgeworth	Maria mourned so intensely that she fell ill. She was pleased by a letter from Barbara Hofland recognising the very special nature of her loss; on the other hand she was offended at Elizabeth Inchbald
Friends, Associates	Mary Russell Mitford	Among her earlier literary friends, MRM wrote with particular warmth of Barbara Hofland (with whom she stayed in London for the first night of her play Julian), Eleanor Porden , and Joanna Baillie ...
Friends, Associates	Sarah Pearson	The thousand subscribers to SP 's first publication suggest that she had an impressive circle of friends and contacts in Sheffield and also in the Channel Islands. She and her writings were well known...
Friends, Associates	Eliza Fay	At some unknown date EF met the novelist Barbara Hofland , to whom she related the incident about the alleged buying of the slave. Hofland, Barbara. The Captives in India. R. Bentley, 1834. 1: 193ff
Friends, Associates	Agnes Strickland	They began to build a network of literary friends and potential supporters: Thomas Campbell , Robert Southey , Charles Lamb , editor William Jerdan , and even more helpfully women like Barbara Hofland , Jane
Friends, Associates	Mary Ann Kelty	Little is known of any literary contacts of MAK . She met and became a friend of Barbara Hofland , and in the early 1830s she sought [the] acquaintance by letter of Harriet Martineau ...
Intertextuality and Influence	Eliza Meteyard	This illustrated story of a young girl's childhood and education has some autobiographical elements (Howitt calls it her own early life), Lee, Amice. Laurels & Rosemary: The Life of William and Mary Howitt. Oxford University Press, 1955. 188 including the profession of the army surgeon father of the eponymous character...
Literary responses	Eliza Fay	The Calcutta Gazette gave EF a warm review. Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Barbara Hofland admired her letters for the moral qualities (the female fortitude) they displayed. Hofland, Barbara. The Captives in India. R. Bentley, 1834. 1: prelims She gave some real incidents and situations from Fay's experience...
Occupation	Sarah Pearson	SP was a protégée (rather than a servant) Jung, Sandro. “Susanna Pearson and the Elegiac Lyric”. Studia Neophilologica: A Journal of Germanic and Romance Languages and Literature, No. 2, pp. 153 - 64. 153n2 Basker, James G., editor. Amazing Grace. Yale University Press, 2002. 412 of Charlotte, Countess Fitzwilliam (c. 1750-13 May 1822), to whom she dedicated her first publication. Lady Fitzwilliam was also a patron to Barbara Hofland and...
Author summary	Elizabeth Meeke	EM , who was not correctly identified until 2013, was unusually prolific among novelists (twenty-six titles), children's writers, and translators of the Romantic period. (She also compiled an anthology for children.) She issued through the...
Textual Production	Mary Russell Mitford	Mitford sought to secure a review from either Mary or William Howitt , but Mary replied that reviews had already appeared in the journals they had links with. Another friend, Barbara Hofland , reviewed it...
Textual Production	Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington	This work involved her in finding—and engaging in voluminous correspondence with—contributors (who often were or became her personal friends), such as Anna Maria Hall , Felicia Hemans , Amelia Opie , Mary Russell Mitford ,...
Textual Production	Frances Hodgson Burnett	FHB wrote The Two Little Pilgrims' Progress (whose title invokes Bunyan and perhaps adapters of Bunyan like Mary Martha Sherwood , Barbara Hofland , and Charlotte Maria Tucker ), about the visit of orphan twins...

Timeline

6 November 1817

Princess Charlotte died at 2.30 a.m. after delivering a stillborn son. Poor clinical judgement was to blame; intense national mourning and controversy followed.