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.
In contrast to the life-writings of her working-class contemporary Hannah Cullwick
, EJ
's autobiography is remarkably self-reflexive and literary. She says that an account of her life in Dundee alone, her trials, disappointments, joys...
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Jolley
EJ
invoked as an appropriate description of her own motivation, Flaubert
's dictum that writing comes from an inner wound.
Joussen, Ulla. “An Interview with Elizabeth Jolley”. Kunapipi, Vol.
15
, No. 2, pp. 37-43.
40
She said of Johnson
's Rasselas and Goethe
's Elective Affinities (both of which...
Friends, Associates
Mary Jones
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.
19
, No. 1, pp. 36-60.
42-3
names
Mary Jones
The last was Samuel Johnson
's nickname for her. He loved nicknames, and this had reference to three things: her brother's position as Chanter, her practice of poetry, and Milton
's address to the nightingale...
According to a reminiscence from the early half of 1868 by a reader who had been a Cambridge
undergraduate when the book appeared, MAK
first thought of titling her novel after its heroine, but was...
Intertextuality and Influence
Mary Ann Kelty
Again she supplies a paragraph (deliberately not doctrinal, but aiming at practical morality) for each evening of the whole year. For January the fifth, for instance, she quotes our great moralist Dr. Johnson saying that...
Intertextuality and Influence
Mary Ann Kelty
She goes on to quote Johnson
, Cowper
, Emerson
(with whose thought she engages in some detail), and many other canonical names. Among women she quotes from Mary Bosanquet Fletcher
(a passage about communion...
Textual Production
Ellis Cornelia Knight
ECK
published her first work, Dinarbas, a novel which acts as a continuation of Samuel Johnson
's Rasselas.
Kolb, Gwin J. “Forward”. Dinarbas, Colleagues Press.
vii
“Review of Dinarbas by Ellis Cornelia Knight”. The Analytical Review, Vol.
7
, J. Johnson, pp. 189-91.
189
Author summary
Ellis Cornelia Knight
ECK
, whose life was lived close to some makers of history during the French Revolutionary period and later, indulged her scholarly or literary bent in unusual or pioneering genres: a sequel to Samuel Johnson
Friends, Associates
Ellis Cornelia Knight
During her childhood, ECK
associated with a variety of celebrated people through her family connections. Her mother was a close friend of painter and writer Frances Reynolds
(sister to the more famous painter Sir Joshua Reynolds
Wealth and Poverty
Ellis Cornelia Knight
After her father died in late 1775, while ECK
and her mother were spending the winter in London, Lady Knight applied for a widow's pension from the Crown, in a petition drawn up by Dr Johnson
Intertextuality and Influence
Ellis Cornelia Knight
In her introduction toDinarbas, ECK
indicates that her idea for the work arose from Sir John Hawkins
's claim that Samuel Johnson
had intended to write a sequel to Rasselas, in which...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Ellis Cornelia Knight
ECK
relates her experiences at the English and at various European courts, and includes sketches and anecdotes of famous people she knew, including those of an earlier generation like Samuel Johnson
and Frances Reynolds
...
Friends, Associates
Anna Margaretta Larpent
In 1776 the future AML
recorded meeting the Corsican patriot Paoli
and Dr Johnson
ye Great.
Feminist Companion Archive.
After her marriage her own and her husband's work brought her into contact with the cultured elite of London...
