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.
EJ
's next novels were Doubtful Joy, 1935, The Phoenix Nest, 1936, Robert and Helen, 1944, and Young Enthusiasts, 1947 (titled from Samuel Johnson
's description of the ambitious young scholar...
Textual Production
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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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, 1993.
vii
“Review of Dinarbas by Ellis Cornelia Knight”. The Analytical Review, Vol.
7
, J. Johnson, June 1790, pp. 189-91.
189
Textual Production
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
Textual Production
Anna Williams
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
Textual Production
Jane Marcet
The full title is Conversations on the Evidences of Christianity, in which the Leading Arguments of the Best Author are Arranged, Developed, and Connected with Each Other. For the Use of Young Persons and Theological...
This bears no relation to Susanna Haswell Rowson
's Rebecca; or, The Fille de Chambre, 1792. It sounds, however, like a...
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Jan Morris
More than a decade later, in 1978, JM
followed her own portrait of Oxford by editing The Oxford Book of Oxford, a quirky anthology of often very short anecdotes and other excerpts, aimed less...
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Charlotte Lennox
She had written most of it by November 1751. With Johnson
as mediator, she consulted Richardson
about revisions, denouement, optimum length (she reduced her plan from three volumes to two), and about her choice of...
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Ann Hatton
The dedication, to Mrs Carsgill
of Holme Lodge, Northumberland, mentions past discussions with her on the topic of the passions, and cites Johnson
's Life of Savage to prove their violence.
Hatton, Ann. Deeds of the Olden Time. A. K. Newman, 1826.
prelims
Textual Production
Hester Mulso Chapone
Hester Mulso (later HMC
) contributed four brief letters from imaginary, high-society correspondents to the tenth number of Samuel Johnson
's Rambler.
Johnson, Samuel. The Rambler. Editors Bate, Walter Jackson and Albrecht B. Strauss, Yale, Yale University Press, 1969, 3 vols.
1: 51-4
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
...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Hester Mulso Chapone
When Richardson offered her a list of examples of filial disobedience, she replied that no doubt an equally heinous list could be produced of parental oppression. With Carter
she mulled over religious and literary questions...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Elizabeth Montagu
The patriotic element in EM
's reading of Shakespeare is crucial. She magisterially rebukes Voltaire's view of her admired author as having been primitive and unpolished, and seeks to outmanoeuvre the prestige of the French...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Priscilla Wakefield
Despite the title, the travel in this sequel or companion to The Juvenile Travellers confines itself to the British Isles, where one of the most pressing topics of local interest is association with writers...
