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.
This work gave her considerable free time, most of which she spent reading such authors as Austen
, Johnson
, Scott
, and Trollope
. She particularly admired the forms of Mansfield
's published scrapbook...
Intertextuality and Influence
Beatrix Potter
Of the first three stories, Carrier's Bob tells how a waggoner's terrier, Bob, is neglected and ill-treated by the widow after his master's death; The Mole Catcher's Burying describes how, as a village mole-catcher lies...
Textual Production
Jane Porter
She wrote this novel while living in London.
Porter, Jane. The Scottish Chiefs. Derby and Jackson.
19
In her preface to the first edition (now extremely rare)
Feminist Companion Archive.
she wrote that she had made no hesitation to accept truth as the helpmate of...
Literary responses
Hester Lynch Piozzi
Johnson
warmly admired it.
Clifford, James L. Hester Lynch Piozzi (Mrs Thrale). Clarendon Press.
61
Reception
Hester Lynch Piozzi
The very young Laetitia-Matilda Hawkins came unexpectedly on the letter of rebuke to Johnson
while helping her father
with his biographical work: she
admired the letter enough to record her admiration years later, though she...
Family and Intimate relationships
Hester Lynch Piozzi
Hester Thrale (later HLP
) bore her first child, Hester Maria Thrale
, who was known by Johnson
's nickname for her, Queeney
.
Clifford, James L. Hester Lynch Piozzi (Mrs Thrale). Clarendon Press.
54
Textual Features
Hester Lynch Piozzi
HLP
concentrates on the fine shades of difference between near synonyms, for instance Affability, Condescension, Courtesy, and Graciousness.
Winchester, Simon. “Roget and his Brilliant, Unrivalled, Malign, and Detestable Thesaurus”. Atlantic Monthly, Vol.
287
, No. 5, pp. 53-75.
57
She sometimes draws on Johnson
's Dictionary but does not always entirely agree with it. She...
Family and Intimate relationships
Hester Lynch Piozzi
Hester Thrale
bore her third living daughter, Lucy Elizabeth, whose second name was given in honour of Johnson
's dead wife.
Clifford, James L. Hester Lynch Piozzi (Mrs Thrale). Clarendon Press.
81
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Hester Lynch Piozzi
Her annotations were a vehicle for her own reminiscences and critical writing. When she marked up her copy of Boswell
's Life of Johnson she contradicted Boswell regularly, offering evidence or reasoning to prove his...
Friends, Associates
Hester Lynch Piozzi
Hester Thrale (later HLP
) and her first husband
met Samuel Johnson
for the first time.
Johnson recorded this as 9 January, though HLP
later remembered it as the 10th.
Clifford, James L. Hester Lynch Piozzi (Mrs Thrale). Clarendon Press.
55n1
Clifford, James L. Hester Lynch Piozzi (Mrs Thrale). Clarendon Press.
54-5
Literary responses
Hester Lynch Piozzi
HLP
was one of the twenty-four most-reviewed women writers of 1789-90.
Hawkins, Ann R., and Stephanie Eckroth, editors. Romantic Women Writers Reviewed. Vol. 3 vols., Ashgate Publishing Company.
Hester Thrale
composed what is today her best-known letter: a measured, dignified rebuke to Johnson
in reply to his epistolary bellow of pain and rage at the news of her impending second marriage.
Johnson, Samuel, and Hester Lynch Piozzi. The Letters of Samuel Johnson. Editor Chapman, Robert William, Clarendon Press.
3: 175
Material Conditions of Writing
Hester Lynch Piozzi
From ItalyHLP
arranged the publication of her Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson.
Clifford, James L. Hester Lynch Piozzi (Mrs Thrale). Clarendon Press.
263
Textual Production
Hester Lynch Piozzi
Back in England, HLP
published her edition of Letters to and from the Late Samuel Johnson.
Clifford, James L. Hester Lynch Piozzi (Mrs Thrale). Clarendon Press.
314
Leisure and Society
Hester Lynch Piozzi
The National Portrait Gallery
lists twelve portraits of HLP
, dated 1781 to 1811 (though some of these derive from each other and a couple are conversation-piece prints). Sir Joshua Reynolds
painted her with her...
