Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Hannah More
-
Standard Name: More, Hannah
Birth Name: Hannah More
Nickname: Nine
Pseudonym: A Young Lady
Pseudonym: The Author of Percy
Pseudonym: H. M.
Pseudonym: Will Chip, a Carpenter
During her long and phenomenally productive career HM
wrote plays, poems, a single novel and much social, religious, and political commentary. She was the leading conservative and Christian moralist of her day. Her political opinions were reactionary, and her passionate commitment to educating the poor and lessening their destitution has been judged as marred by its paternalist tone. But she was a pioneer educator and philanthropist, with enormous influence on the Victorian age.
Orlando gratefully acknowledges help with this document from Mary Waldron. Any flaws or errors are, of course, not hers.
A few statements are footnoted to their originators, whom EPW
has either paraphrased or versified: Sherlock and Lavater
are her favourites, but she also draws on lighter writers like Horace
, Swift
, and Coleridge
Intertextuality and Influence
Harriette Wilson
The book itself opens with an image presenting HW
's writing as showmanship: Lions and Tigers just arrived for the coronation. Walk in ladies and gentlemen. . . . Only six francs, to see all...
Friends, Associates
Anna Williams
Williams enjoyed cordial relations with other members of Johnson's circle, like Elizabeth Carter
(who helped with subscriptions for Williams's book when Johnson was dragging his feet) and Hester Thrale
(who contributed). Carter counted her a...
Literary responses
Helen Maria Williams
It talked of the need to counter her poisonous false philosophy with antidotes from the writings of a More
, a Hamilton
, and a West
.
Michael-Johnston, Georgina. Helen Maria Williams: Liberty, Sensibility, and Education. University of Alberta.
140
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Helena Wells
The body of her work takes up her favourite topic: the difficulties of women as wage-earners—difficulties which impede the progress of my own sex to independence—and what should be done to solve them...
Textual Features
Susanna Watts
The many pictures in the volume include diagrams of the hold of a slave ship, I & Dash my Dog (a sketch), and prints of Hester Mulso Chapone
, Lady Rachel Russell
(with a copy...
Publishing
Lucy Walford
LW
's lives of Jane Taylor
, Elizabeth Fry
, Hannah More
, and Mary Somerville
, each originally printed in Blackwood's Magazine, appeared together as Four Biographies from Blackwood in Edinburgh and London.
PW
welcomes the way that Adam Smith
and other Scottish Enlightenment writers have made womanhood a branch of philosophy, not a little interesting.
O’Brien, Karen. Women and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Cambridge University Press.
106
Unlike Wollstonecraft
, she sees women's sphere as naturally limited and...
Occupation
Sarah Tytler
As regards the typical feminine curriculum, ST
resented the tradition of mandatory music teaching—of the piano—to young women, and the slight to other branches of education in the extravagant favour shown to one branch.
Tytler, Sarah. Three Generations. J. Murray.
235-6
Literary responses
Charlotte Maria Tucker
Marshall's prediction proved true: CMT
's audience disappeared as the Victorian age ended. However, the Dictionary of Literary Biography acknowledges that her successful introduction of imaginative richness into didactic literature influenced other authors and established...
Publishing
Sarah Trimmer
It was probably in 1785 that ST
published her first set of prints: that is, engraved plates for educational purposes. Her first topic was English history, and the book of prints had a companion volume,...
Textual Production
Sarah Trimmer
The option of bulk purchase as a valuable present to the poor, and to young people in general,
O’Malley, Andrew. “The Coach and Six: Chapbook Residue in Late Eighteenth-Century Children’s Literature”. The Lion and The Unicorn, Vol.
24
, pp. 18-44.
42n25
indicates that she, like Hannah More
after her, hoped to improve the labouring classes through the...
Literary responses
Sarah Trimmer
The Critical Review gave this work a warm welcome.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
66 (1788): 74-5
The British Critic praised the 1801 edition in a lengthy review, and said there was no woman except Hannah More
doing such sterling...
Textual Production
Sarah Trimmer
From the second number it bore ST
's name. Hannah More
came up with the idea for her Cheap Repository Tracts after two issues of Trimmer's magazine. If it was a model for her, she...
Textual Features
Sarah Trimmer
In addition to Catharine Cappe
's work on Sunday schools and versions of fairy stories by Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy
, the magazine reviewed work by a whole library of didactic, pedagogical, or improving writers, reprinted as...
Timeline
15 July 1819: Byron began to publish in instalments (opening...
Writing climate item
15 July 1819
Byron
began to publish in instalments (opening with cantos one and two) his satiricalmock-epicpoemDon Juan; he left it unfinished at his death.
1861: A company in Salem, Massachusetts, issued...
Writing climate item
1861
A company in Salem, Massachusetts, issued what seems to be the earliest version of a game called Authors, whose object was to collect sets of cards bearing the names of writers and the...
April 1879: James Murray—editor since 1 March of what...
Writing climate item
April 1879
James Murray
—editor since 1 March of what was to become the Oxford English Dictionary—issued an Appeal for readers to supply illustrative quotations.
By 18 August 1888: Lucy Walford published Four Biographies from...
Women writers item
By 18 August 1888
Lucy Walford
published Four Biographies from Blackwood's.
14 October 1902: St Deiniol's Library, situated near Hawarden...
Building item
14 October 1902
St Deiniol's Library
, situated near Hawarden Castle under the Welsh mountains, founded by William Ewart Gladstone
to bring together readers who lacked books, was officially opened.
Texts
More, Hannah. The Inflexible Captive. S. Farley, 1774.
More, Hannah. The Literary Manuscripts and Letters of Hannah More. Editor Smith, Nicholas D., Ashgate, 2008.
More, Hannah. The Spirit of Prayer. T. Cadell, 1825.
More, Hannah. The Village Disputants. J. Hatchard, 1817.
More, Hannah. The Works of Hannah More. T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1801.
More, Hannah. Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to general Society. T. Cadell, 1788.
More, Hannah. Village Politics. F. and C. Rivington, 1793.
More, Hannah, and William Roberts. Works. H. Fisher, R. Fisher, and P. Jackson, 1834.