Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Samuel Johnson
-
Standard Name: Johnson, Samuel
Used Form: Dr Johnson
Arriving in eighteenth-century London as one more young literary hopeful from the provinces, SJ
achieved such a name for himself as an arbiter of poetry, of morality (through his Rambler and other periodical essays and his prose fiction Rasselas), of the language (the Dictionary), and of the literary canon (his edition of Shakespeare
and the Lives of the English Poets) that literary history has often typecast him as hidebound and authoritarian. This idea has been facilitated by his ill-mannered conversational dominance in his late years and by the portrait of him drawn by the hero-worshipping Boswell
. In fact he was remarkable for his era in seeing literature as a career open to the talented without regard to gender. From his early-established friendships with Elizabeth Carter
and Charlotte Lennox
to his mentorship of Hester Thrale
, Frances Burney
, and (albeit less concentratedly) of Mary Wollstonecraft
and Henrietta Battier
, it was seldom that he crossed the path of a woman writer without friendly and relatively egalitarian encouragement.
FR
became a good friend of Samuel Johnson
, who by late 1764 was writing to her as My Dearest Dear.
Johnson, Samuel. The Letters of Samuel Johnson. Editor Redford, Bruce, Princeton University Press.
1: 246
He also distinguished her with a nickname, Renny. One of...
Friends, Associates
Anna Seward
Acquainted with Hester Piozzi
(and an admirer of her wit),
Seward, Anna. Letters of Anna Seward. Editor Constable, Archibald, Vol.
6 vols.
, A. Constable.
2: 102
AS
was long but less warmly acquainted with Johnson
. She accused him both of malice (repeatedly) and of liking only worshippers...
Friends, Associates
Oliver Goldsmith
Goldsmith met and became a friend and associate of Edmund Burke
, Samuel Johnson
, Sir Joshua Reynolds
, and others belonging to the Club, of which he was a founder member. He was a...
Samuel Johnson
, visiting Oxford, boasted to MJ
of the closeness of his friendship with Charlotte Lennox
; a few months later Jones wrote to Lennox, to say she would be visiting London soon.
Isles, Duncan. “The Lennox Collection (Continued)”. Harvard Library Bulletin, Vol.
Here she began to gather the circle of friends which by the end of her long life had touched every cranny of English society. She had already met Edmund Burke
in Bristol the previous September...
Friends, Associates
Mary Palmer
MP
and her husband
entertained her brother Joshua
, sister Frances
, and Samuel Johnson
, sharing the hostess honours for several days with her married sister Elizabeth Johnson, who lived nearby.
Clifford, James L. Dictionary Johnson. McGraw-Hill.
282-5
Friends, Associates
Hester Mulso Chapone
Hester Mulso became a member of Samuel Richardson
's circle (as depicted in the well-known drawing by Susanna Highmore
), and engaged with him in lively debate on the position, status, and duties of unmarried...
Visitors to her parents' house included Oliver Goldsmith
and Samuel Johnson
, whom the Hawkins children nicknamed Polyphemus, after the one-eyed giant in the Odyssey.
Hawkins, Laetitia-Matilda. Memoirs, Anecdotes, Facts and Opinions. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, and C. and J. Rivington.
1: 86
After Johnson's death, John Hawkins was...
Friends, Associates
Radagunda Roberts
Though very little is known of RR
's life, she was well acquainted with at least one other woman writer: Frances Brooke
(whose son attended St Paul's while Roberts's brother was High Master, and who...
Friends, Associates
Frances Brooke
Before departing for Québec to join her husband
, FB
attended a farewell party with Samuel Johnson
and other literary friends.
McMullen, Lorraine. An Odd Attempt in a Woman: The Literary Life of Frances Brooke. University of British Columbia Press.
69
Friends, Associates
Charlotte Lennox
CL
won the enduring friendship of Samuel Johnson
and Samuel Richardson
. (With Johnson she quarrelled at least once, and he took pains to heal the breach.) She introduced Giuseppe Baretti
to Johnson, and had...