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.
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
Friends, Associates
Anna Williams
AW
's father knew many of the leading figures in the science of his day, and she probably met them through him. Her celebrated friendship with Samuel Johnson
seems to have begun through his interest...
Friends, Associates
Jean Marishall
While in LondonJM
was in touch with a long list of patrons or prospective patrons, including those eminent in both the social and literary worlds. The socially prominent included (as well as a colonel...
Friends, Associates
Frances Reynolds
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
Susannah Dobson
Samuel Johnson
, on the other hand, called SDthe Directress of rational conversation,
Johnson, Samuel. The Letters of Samuel Johnson. Editor Redford, Bruce, Princeton University Press.
4: 147
which sounds as if he was siding here with his friend Lennox rather than with his friends Burney and...
Friends, Associates
Frances Burney
FB
made friends in the older generation as well as her own. The whole Burney family loved and were loved by David Garrick
. Sir Joshua Reynolds
, who lived barely fifty yards away from...
Instructor
David Garrick
He attended the tiny, unsuccessful school on which Samuel Johnson
lost his wife's money.
Intertextuality and Influence
Josephine Tey
The book is dedicated to those who may not prefer Scotland to Truth, but certainly prefer Scotland to enquiry—
Tey, Josephine. Claverhouse. Collins.
prelims
in a submerged allusion to Samuel Johnson
's pronouncement: A Scotchman must be a...
Intertextuality and Influence
Sarah Green
This preface is headed by two Latin words (one with a faulty grammatical ending) from Ovid
's description of chaos. SG
slams both male and female novelists, chiefly authors of gothic or horrid novels and...
Intertextuality and Influence
Mrs Martin
Each volume has an introductory chapter, addressing the reader in the manner of, and with some images borrowed from, Henry Fielding
or Laurence Sterne
(the latter, indeed, is mentioned by name). MM
hopes her reader...
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...
Intertextuality and Influence
Hester Lynch Piozzi
Hester Lynch Salusbury (later HLP
) kept a diary while still in her teens, and wrote remarkable poems and translations. Many manuscripts of her early poems bear the later annotations of Samuel Johnson
. Some...
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Cooper
EC
's book was generally respected. It was praised by Mary Scott
, and had a significant impact on Thomas Chatterton
Bronson, Bertrand H. “Chattertoniana”. Modern Language Quarterly, Vol.
11
, pp. 417-24.
417
as well as, perhaps, on Johnson
's format in his Lives of the...
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Helme
The original title-page quotes Johnson
's Rasselas on the way that the enchantments of fancy belong to the time of youth and vanish with it.
Helme, Elizabeth. Instructive Rambles in London, and the Adjacent Villages. T. N. Longman and E. Newbery.
title-page
A preface declares EH
's intention of blending instruction...
Intertextuality and Influence
Frances Burney
In April 1780 the author's cousin Edward Francisco Burney
illustrated Evelina in three stained drawings. The one for volume two shows the heroine in her mood of depression after returning home from her visit...