Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Laetitia Pilkington
-
Standard Name: Pilkington, Laetitia
Birth Name: Laetitia Van Lewen
Married Name: Laetitia Pilkington
Self-constructed Name: Mrs Meade
The fame of the eighteenth-century Irishwoman LP
as a memoirist—often thought of as a courtesan memoirist and writer of secret history—has obscured her very considerable merit as a poet and satirist.
Constantia Crawley (later CG
) became (through her own efforts, said Mary Barber
) proficient in Latin, Greek, history, theology, philosophy and mathematics. Laetitia Pilkington
says she also knew Hebrew (which Mary Delany
doubted), and...
Education
Constantia Grierson
From her mid or late teens she studied midwifery with Laetitia Pilkington
's father, Dr John Van Lewen
.
Elias, A. C. “A Manuscript of Constantia Grierson’s”. Swift Studies, Vol.
2
, pp. 33-56.
39
Family and Intimate relationships
Mary Leadbeater
ML
's father, Richard Shakleton
or Shackleton, from a family which had settled in Ireland from Yorkshire, was a schoolmaster at Ballitore School
. Unusually for a Quaker, he had been educated at Trinity College
Friends, Associates
Constantia Grierson
CG
was a friend from their adolescence of the young women who became the poets Mary Barber
and Laetitia Pilkington
. Their shared friendship with Jonathan Swift
has been an element in preserving some memory...
MB
was a close friend of Constantia Grierson
. Her friendship with Jonathan Swift
endured many vicissitudes; that with Laetitia Pilkington
did not survive her apparently siding with Pilkington's husband
when the couple fell out...
Friends, Associates
Mary Delany
In the category of Irish wits she included Jonathan Swift
, Constantia Grierson
and Laetitia Pilkington
. Though Pilkington's closeness to Swift
was an important point in her favour, MD
was still demonstrating a certain...
Literary responses
Constantia Grierson
CG
's professional reputation during her lifetime was that of a prodigy. Even Laetitia Pilkington
shared this view: her Learning appeared like the Gift poured out on the Apostles, of speaking all Languages, without the...
Literary responses
Teresia Constantia Phillips
Early among printed comment on TCP
's Apology was An Oxford Scholar with The Parallel; or, Pilkington
and Phillips Compared. Being remarks upon the memoirs of those two celebrated writers.
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true, http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.
Literary responses
Teresia Constantia Phillips
Critic Lynda M. Thompson
argues that TCP
and Laetitia Pilkington
(her close predecessor in publication, regularly linked with her in contemporary gossip) were doing something quite new in revealing their transgressive sex lives and blaming...
Publishing
Mary Barber
He concluded, let Mrs Howard
know that I recommend you to the Queen
,
Stewart, Wendy. “The Poetical Trade of Favours: Swift, Mary Barber, and the Counterfeit Letters”. Lumen, Vol.
xviii
, pp. 155-74.
170
though he declined to supply a direct introduction to a potential royal patron. Two months later Gay
wrote to Swift...
Textual Features
Dorothea Du Bois
After seven pages on grammar, she offers pattern letters: those in verse are in effect an anthology of epistolary poems by women, a patriotically generous selection of Irish writers (Mary Monck
, Mary Barber
Textual Features
Robert Southey
Against the trend of the times, RS
aimed for historical interest rather than literary canonicity, compiling in his Specimens of the Later English Poets a collection of representative voices rather than a garland: The taste...
Textual Production
Constantia Grierson
CG
's earliest poems were written to Laetitia Pilkington
before either of them were married; compliments to Barber
came later.
Elias, A. C. “A Manuscript of Constantia Grierson’s”. Swift Studies, Vol.
2
, pp. 33-56.
33n3
Lavoie, Chantel Michelle. Poems by Eminent Ladies: A Study of an Eighteenth-Century Anthology. University of Toronto, 1999.
217, 219
Textual Production
Mary Barber
A Song by Laetitia Pilkington
(which made its first appearance in the final edition of Robert Dodsley
's Collection of Poems in 1758 ascribed to Jabez Earle
) was later often mistakenly attributed to MB
.
Suarez, Michael F., and Robert Dodsley, editors. “Who’s Who in Robert Dodsley’s <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>Collection of Poems by Several Hands</span>”;. A Collection of Poems by Several Hands, Routledge/Thoemmes, 1997, pp. 120-6.
192-3
Timeline
By March 1751
Tobias Smollett
published his novelThe Adventures of Peregrine Pickle.
January 1781-December 1782
The Lady's Poetical Magazine, or Beauties of British Poetry appeared, published by James Harrison
in four half-yearly numbers; it is arguable whether or not it kept the first number's promise of generous selections of work...
Christmas 1819
William Wordsworth
presented Lady Mary Lowther
with a little manuscript volume of poems: those by women were mostly copied from the pages of Poems by Eminent Ladies.
Texts
Pilkington, Laetitia. An Apology for the Minister. J. Cooper, 1739.
Pilkington, Laetitia. An Excursory View of the Present State of Men and Things. C. Corbett, 1739.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, and Laetitia Pilkington. “Annotation”. The Memoirs of Mrs. Laetitia Pilkington.
Pilkington, Laetitia. “Introduction”. Memoirs of Laetitia Pilkington, edited by A. C. Elias, University of Georgia Press, 1997, p. xv - lxii.
Pilkington, Laetitia. Memoirs of Laetitia Pilkington. Editor Elias, A. C., University of Georgia Press, 1997.
Pilkington, Laetitia. The Memoirs of Mrs. Laetitia Pilkington. Printed for the author and sold by R. Griffiths and G. Woodfall, 1754.
Pilkington, Laetitia. The Statues. T. Cooper, 1739.
