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.
She progressed on her own later to other languages such as German, Portuguese and Arabic, and to studies with Thomas Wright
which included astronomy, mathematics, and ancient civilization and culture. Much has been made of...
Occupation
Elizabeth Carter
Though unmarried, EC
was not without domestic responsibilities. Even after her father's second marriage she had household tasks. She made puddings and sewed shirts; and she tutored her half-brother Henry, twenty-one years her junior, to...
Joseph Highmore
painted EC
in about 1738, holding a book in her hand and about to be crowned with a laurel wreath. This picture seems to be related to Samuel Johnson
's poem To Eliza...
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Carter
The reviewers of this collection were appreciative; the Critical's high praise included, however, heavy emphasis on gender.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
12 (1762): 180-3
This monthly number of the Critical appeared with its date (1762) misprinted as 1761...
Textual Production
Elizabeth Carter
EC
's work, An Examination of Mr. Pope's Essay on Man, translated Crousaz' Examen; A Commentary on Mr. Pope's Principles of Morality, or Essay on Man, by Johnson, 1739, translated Crousaz' second...
Textual Production
Elizabeth Carter
The work she translated was Algarotti
's Italian version of Newton
's Optics. The project of translating back from the Italian popularisation of this famous work was recommended to her by Thomas Birch
....
Reception
Elizabeth Carter
Joseph Highmore
's painting of her with book and laurel wreath, and John Fayram
's painting of her as a young Minerva in stylish armour with a copy of Plato
, each of them associated...
Publishing
Elizabeth Carter
The book had gone to press in June 1757.
Feminist Companion Archive.
The original press run of 1,018 copies had to be supplemented with a further 250. First of several more editions was the Dublin one of the...
Reception
Elizabeth Carter
As early as 1741 a portrait of EC
as intellectual icon, with a poem about it in the Gentleman's Magazine, celebrated and publicised her genius and exceptionality.
“Brilliant Women: 18th-Century Bluestockings”. National Portrait Gallery.
She was one of the handful of...
Reception
Margaret Cavendish
These verse eulogies or testimonials came from distinguished persons and institutions to whom she had presented copies of her work. It circulated widely: the Dutch poet Constantijn Huygens
owned one of her books.
Smith, Emma. Shakespeare’s First Folio: Four Centuries of an Iconic Book. Oxford University Press.
92
During...
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...
Reception
Hester Mulso Chapone
HMC
was one of the handful of women cited by Johnson
(as Miss Mulso) as an authority in his Dictionary of the English Language, 1755 (all of them among the fifty or so...
Textual Features
Sarah Chapone
This 70-page pamphlet, addressed to Parliament
, exhibits detailed knowledge of the law and of recent cases involving heiress marriage, adultery, etc. SC
finds the English law harsher to women than either ancient Roman or...
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 University Press.