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.
The list of correspondents is indeed potentially helpful, since the cast of characters is complicated. Six people exchange letters about the education of a boy and a girl, Dudley Clonmore and Claudy Howard, on the...
Textual Features
Janet Little
She consistently takes a challenging stance in face of authority. Ironically (in view of Johnson's championing of women writers and Burns's snobbish attitude about herself) she uses Samuel Johnson
as a symbol of the tyrant-critic...
Textual Features
Mary Hays
The title-page quotes Johnson
on the efficacy of education: Let it be remembered, that the efficacy of ignorance has been long tried, and has not produced the consequences expected. Let knowledge therefore take its turn...
MM
's poems here include those from the Gentleman's Magazine, sweepingly revised. There is, however, contrary to rumour, no specific internal or external evidence to suggest that Johnson
had any hand in the revision...
Textual Features
Isabella Beeton
This first chapter goes well beyond outlining the provision of characters or proper wages for different classes of servants, venturing advice on the art of conversation and social etiquette. IB
quotes Samuel Johnson
on men's...
Textual Features
Elizabeth Griffith
To modern readers EG
's moral-hunting may seem beside the point, but like Elizabeth Montagu
(whom she cites admiringly as having given her courage for her own attempt) and theBowdlers
, she was interpreting...
Textual Features
Frances Burney
Evelina opens with an ode to Charles Burney
(unnamed) as Author of my Being, which sounds like an apology for having written.
Doody, Margaret Anne. Frances Burney: The Life in the Works. Cambridge University Press, 1988.
The Gentleman's Magazine published proposals, written for AW
by Samuel Johnson
, for a miscellany or collection of poems and essays which would include her own work along with some pieces by other people.
Larsen, Lyle. Dr. Johnson’s Household. Archon Books, 1985.
11-12, 16-17, 121
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Harriet Corp
She quoted Johnson
on her title-page (on the value and usefulness of familiar histories), and acknowledged her sex in the preface. The book is now rare in both its first edition and the second (published...
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Elizabeth Heyrick
EH
published Familiar Letters Addressed to Children and Young Persons of the Middle Ranks, with a quotation from Johnson
's Rambler on the title-page.
Heyrick, Elizabeth. Familiar Letters Addressed to Children and Young Persons of the Middle Ranks. Darton, Harvey and Darton, 1811.
title-page
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Mary Ann Kelty
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...
Textual Production
Hannah More
Johnson
suggested some little alterations in Sir Eldred, though none in The Bleeding Rock.
Jones, Mary Gwladys. Hannah More. Cambridge University Press, 1952.
