Mary Delany

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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MD 's writing was unpublished in her lifetime during the eighteenth century, but letters, occasional poems, and other writings (a libretto, a romance) were as much part of her daily life as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.
Portrait of Mary Delany, by John Opie, 1782. Her face and grey hair are enclosed by a white cap; she wears a dark cloak with a hood, white linen at her neckline, and a pendant.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Friends, Associates Jonathan Swift
Swift helped and befriended a number of women writers. He was a patron of Mary Barber , Constantia Grierson , an unidentified Mrs Sican , Mary Davys , and Laetitia Pilkington , a colleague of...
Friends, Associates Anna Miller
Anna Riggs (later ALM) grew up among the Bath community women: that is, Sarah Scott , Barbara Montagu , Mary Arnold , and Elizabeth Cutts . Margaret Mary Ravaud , who lived with...
Friends, Associates Jane Williams
JW became a member of the literary circle of Augusta Hall, later Lady Llanover (who is known as a patron of Lady Charlotte Guest and as editor of Mary Delany 's autobiography and correspondence).
Fraser, Maxwell. “Jane Williams (Ysgafell) 1806-1885”. Brycheiniog, Vol.
7
, pp. 95-114.
102
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Augusta Hall
Intertextuality and Influence Charlotte O'Conor Eccles
COCE opens by making two points which might seem at variance with each other: the fascination which the past holds for later generations, and their ignorance of its discomforts and inconvenience. In a note she...
Intertextuality and Influence Hester Mulso Chapone
HMC published A Letter to a New-Married Lady: a pamphlet-sized book on a subject suggested by Mary Delany .
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.
Leisure and Society Ann Thicknesse
Thomas Gainsborough , a family friend, painted her as an unmarried woman in an eye-catching pose in 1760. This portrait has become famous and is often reproduced. Gainsborough decided against exhibiting it publicly, but Mary Delany
Literary responses Sarah Chapone
Mary Delany said SCwould shine in an assembly composed of Tully s, Homer s, and Milton s.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Though Homer and Cicero are connected chiefly with oral texts, the inclusion of Milton suggests that Delany...
Literary responses Anna Miller
Her publisher, Charles Dilly , praised the work and its philanthropic author for animated warmth so honestly avowed.
Whyman, Susan E. The Pen and the People: English Letter Writers 1660-1800. Oxford University Press.
195
Horace Walpole wrote: The poor Arcadian patroness does not spell one word of French or Italian...
Literary responses Alison Cockburn
Her literary image has been entwined with that of Scotland's romantic history and landscape. Sarah Tytler (Henrietta Keddie) and Jean L. Watson in The Songstresses of Scotland, 1871, delighted in the idea of her...
Literary responses Jane Cave
Schürer has noted that JC is unique in handling this material in print: nowhere else in eighteenth-century non-fictional texts does a respectable woman track her husband to a brothel or catch a venereal disease from...
Literary responses Anne Finch
Barbara McGovern has disposed (hopefully once and for all) of the mistaken story of Pope 's hostility to AF . In fact, they shared a literary friendship which Finch found valuable.
McGovern, Barbara. Anne Finch and Her Poetry: A Critical Biography. University of Georgia Press.
102ff
She also addressed...
Literary responses Eliza Haywood
In the Monthly Review, Ralph Griffiths passed a judgement which was inflected against Betsy Thoughtless by issues of gender. He guessed that the author was female because of the novel's attention to matters of...
Literary responses Sarah Chapone
Mary Delany , who read this work in manuscript, called it ingenious (in that word's old-fashioned meaning of learned or scholarly), but thought that the legal aspect still needed revision.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
The book received praise from...
Occupation Frances Burney
FB betook herself, with a visit en route to Mary Delany , to begin her work as Keeper of the Robes to Queen Charlotte .
Doody, Margaret Anne. Frances Burney: The Life in the Works. Cambridge University Press.
171
Occupation Frances Burney
Once FB had met the king and queen, through Mary Delany , her father expended much effort to secure her a court position. He thought of it as a triumph. She, on the other hand...

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