Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Mary Delany
-
Standard Name: Delany, Mary
Birth Name: Mary Granville
Married Name: Mary Pendarves
Married Name: Mary Delany
Pseudonym: Aspasia
Indexed Name: Mrs Delany
MD
's writing was unpublished in her lifetime during the eighteenth century, but letters, occasional poems, and other writings (a libretto, a romance) were as much part of her daily life as her art works. Little except her letters survives.
Earlier in 1755 her friend Mary Delany
had written that Barber's husband drinks his claret, smokes his pipe, and cares not a pin for any of his family.
Stewart, Wendy. “The Poetical Trade of Favours: Swift, Mary Barber, and the Counterfeit Letters”. Lumen, Vol.
Constantia Crawley (later CG
) became (through her own efforts, said Mary Barber
) proficient in Latin, Greek, history, theology, philosophy and mathematics. Laetitia Pilkington
says she also knew Hebrew (which Mary Delany
doubted), and...
Family and Intimate relationships
Amelia Opie
This was John Opie's second marriage; his first wife had deserted him and their marriage had been dissolved by act of parliament. The second marriage remained childless. John Opie had been enjoying professional success in...
Family and Intimate relationships
Sarah Chapone
SC
's daughter Sally, to whom Mary Delany
and her sister
were both godparents, was probably born in spring 1731.
Wesley, John. The Works of John Wesley. Clarendon; Oxford University Press.
25: 280
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Elstob
By this time, however, she was acquiring a circle of patrons. She had met Sarah Chapone
, parson's wife and proto-feminist, who this same year published her anonymous, hard-hitting The Hardships of the English Laws...
Friends, Associates
Laetitia Pilkington
LP
's friendship with Constantia Grierson
had begun before her marriage. Both she and her husband were friends and protegées of Swift
, and she met and entertained the future Mary Delany
on the latter's...
Friends, Associates
Sarah Chapone
In her teens Sarah Kirkham developed a close friendship with a girl of her own age, Mary Granville (later Delany)
, who called her Sappho and described her like this. She had an uncommon genius...
Friends, Associates
Sarah Chapone
SC
's friendship with John Wesley
continued after her marriage, and included Wesley's brother Charles
, Mary Pendarves (later Delany)
, and Mary's sister Anne Granville
, who stayed at her house for a week...
Friends, Associates
Caroline Herschel
Though CH
recorded in summer 1774 that she had lost her only female acquaintance (apparently because her work for her brother left her no time for social life), she later met Charles
and Frances Burney
The leading figures in the movement were Montagu herself (who spent freely in hospitality, and who was later dubbed the Queen of the Bluestockings or Queen of the Blues) and Carter
(the most intellectually...
Timeline
25 March 1738: The Irish harper, composer, and song-writer...
McGuire, James, and James Quinn, editors. Dictionary of Irish Biography. http://dib.cambridge.org/.
November 1739: The anonymous, probably female Sophia published...
Women writers item
November 1739
The anonymous, probably female Sophia
published a pamphlet entitled Woman not Inferior to Man.
February 1741: Mary Pendarves (later Delany) wrote of her...
Building item
February 1741
Mary Pendarves (later Delany)
wrote of her friend the Duchess of Queensberry
's court dress representing botanically exact flowers of many species, with the banks and tree-stumps they grew on.
2 May 1742: Lady Euston, formerly Lady Dorothy Boyle,...
13 September 1742: Frances Williams wrote a letter of pure anger...
Building item
13 September 1742
Frances Williams
wrote a letter of pure anger to her husband
, who had hinted that she must have infected him with venereal disease when it was actually the other way round.
23 November 1752: George Ballard dated his preface to Memoirs...
Women writers item
23 November 1752
George Ballard
dated his preface to Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain . . . (better known as Memoirs of Eminent Ladies); it was published that year.
1872: US writer Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncy,...
Writing climate item
1872
US writer Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncy, or Chauncey, Woolsey) published her highly popular and influential story for girls entitled What Katy Did.
American National Biography. http://www.anb.org/articles/home.html.
Texts
Delany, Mary. A Catalogue of Plants Copyed from Nature in Paper Mosaick. Privately printed, 1778.
Delany, Mary. Flora Delanica. 1782.
Delany, Mary, and Sybil Connolly. Letters from Georgian Ireland. Editor Day, Angélique, Friar’s Bush Press, 1991.
Delany, Mary. Letters from Mrs. Delany (widow of Doctor Patrick Delany) to Mrs. Frances Hamilton. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1820.
Delany, Mary. Marianna. 1759, p. 75.
Delany, Mary. The Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs. Delany. Editor Augusta Hall, Baroness Llanover, R. Bentley, 1862.
