Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Charlotte Smith
-
Standard Name: Smith, Charlotte
Birth Name: Charlotte Turner
Married Name: Charlotte Smith
CS
, poet and novelist of the later eighteenth century, continued her output especially of children's books, into the very early nineteenth century. She wrote her poems for pleasure, her remarkable, now edited letters for relief from the struggles of a difficult life, but her novels (she said) only by necessity.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
996
Many of the latter have foreign settings, not for mere exoticism but to further a political critique which takes a global view. All her writing was done at high speed: she found it hard or impossible to make her income cover the unremitting expenses of her large dependent family. A critic has recently pronounced that the best of [her] writings . . . should be recognised as among the greatest works of the period.
Barrell, John. “To Stir up the People”. London Review of Books, Vol.
At first MAR
's money was tied up in a trust, so that her husband had no access to it, but this situation did not last. Her family life began in poverty and became worse...
Wealth and Poverty
Elizabeth Thomas
This was the low point (so far) in Thomas's life. Gwinnett had changed his will less than three weeks before his death, and left her 600 pounds, but his family ensured that it did not...
Travel
Ann Radcliffe
Within a month or so they were off again, to the English Lake District, visiting their relations in the north on the way (AR
's parents were now settled in Chesterfield). This...
JW
includes some juvenile work in this collection (a poem on Easter and another, written at her mother's request, beginning Thou sweet composer of earth-nurtur'd care, Sweet Poesy!
Feminist Companion Archive.
), and a piece reprinted from a...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Anne Grant
This contains autobiographical fragments and insightful comments on other women writers. Objects of AG
's comment include Susan Ferrier
, Charlotte Smith
(whose poems AG
felt to be easy, flowing, and correct, but low on...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Hester Mulso Chapone
HMC
was still reading and commenting on others' works into her old age. She read and remarked on Hester Piozzi
, Charlotte Smith
, Edward Gibbon
, Erasmus Darwin
's The Loves of the Plants...
The preface to the work writhes between expression and suppression. MB
alternately fears being blamed for vanity or presumption
Bryan, Mary, and Jonathan Wordsworth. Sonnets and Metrical Tales 1815. Woodstock Books.
viii
and hints at her ambition, citing Charlotte Smith
. She admires Smith for having succeeded...
Textual Production
Eglinton Wallace
It appeared in two different editions put out this year through the different publishers T. Hookham
, and Debrett
. The Debrett edition lists the price, one shilling and sixpence, on the title-page.
“Eighteenth Century Collections Online”. Gale Databases.
Goethe's novel...
Textual Production
Eliza Fenwick
Charlotte Smith
knew of this work-in-progress on 26 July 1800, when she told Mary Hays
how she wished she could help EF
with money or moral support. On 31 October 1801 Hays noted that Thomas Underwood
Textual Production
Sophia King
The Minerva Press
published SK
's (anonymous) second novel, Cordelia; or, A Romance of Real Life.
Her subtitle had been used as title by Charlotte Smith
for a translation from French published twelve years before.
University of Alberta Libraries On-line Catalogue. http://www.library.ualberta.ca/.
Butler, Lady Eleanor et al. “Foreword and Editorial Materials”. The Hamwood Papers of the Ladies of Llangollen and Caroline Hamilton, edited by Eva Mary Bell, Macmillan, p. vii - viii; various pages.
Her publisher, Dilly
, paid her £10 for the copyright.
Trainer, James, and Clara Reeve. “Introduction”. The Old English Baron, Oxford University Press.
xii
In CR
's exaggeratedly humble preface she acknowledges her work to be the literary offspring of the Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
—whom...
Textual Production
Mary Russell Mitford
MRM
took a keen interest in the reputations of women writers. She planned in 1821 to write an essay on Miss Austen
's novels, which are by no means valued as they deserve
Mitford, Mary Russell. The Life of Mary Russell Mitford: Told by Herself in Letters To Her Friends. Editor L’Estrange, Alfred Guy Kingham, Harper and Brothers.
1: 357
Timeline
1731: Antoine-François Prévost published the first...
13 September 1759: A British party under James Wolfe climbed...
National or international item
13 September 1759
A British party under James Wolfe
climbed the Heights of Abraham at Quebec and beat the French in battle there.
1775: The first, posthumous, printing of Thomas...
Writing climate item
1775
The first, posthumous, printing of Thomas Gray
's sonnet on the death of Richard West
caused a literary sensation; it laid the foundation for Charlotte Smith
's Elegiac Sonnets, 1784, and the revival of the sonnet form.
1780: James Harrison (hitherto chiefly known as...
Writing climate item
1780
James Harrison
(hitherto chiefly known as a music publisher) began to issue the handsomely-produced Novelists' Magazine, a weekly serial reprinting of canonical novels.
April 1789: The Gentleman's Magazine published Anna Seward's...
Women writers item
April 1789
The Gentleman's Magazine published Anna Seward
's selection of living celebrated Female Poets.
By June 1789: William Lisle Bowles published Fourteen Sonnets,...
Writing climate item
By June 1789
William Lisle Bowles
published Fourteen Sonnets, Elegiac and Descriptive, Written during a Tour.
2 September 1793: Henrietta O'Neill, Irish writer and patron,...
Women writers item
2 September 1793
Henrietta O'Neill
, Irish writer and patron, died. She had opened a private theatre at her seat, Shane's Castle in County Antrim, and also supported the theatre in Belfast.
By June 1796: Samuel Taylor Coleridge compiled a booklet...
By 22 July 1797: William Beckford published a second and more...
Women writers item
By 22 July 1797
William Beckford
published a second and more marked burlesque attack on women's writing: Azemia: A Descriptive and Sentimental Novel. Interspersed with Pieces of Poetry.
December 1802: The Critical Review extolled the quality...
Women writers item
December 1802
The Critical Review extolled the quality of contemporary women's poetry: Miss Seward
, Mrs Barbauld
, Charlotte Smith
, will take their place among the English poets for centuries to come.
1804: The publisher George, George, and John Robinson,...
1825: Alexander Dyce, then a twenty-seven-year-old...
Women writers item
1825
Alexander Dyce
, then a twenty-seven-year-old reluctant clergyman, published his Specimens of British Poetesses, a project in rediscovering women's literary history.
Texts
Smith, Charlotte. A Narrative of the Loss of the Catharine, Venus, and Piedmont Transports. Sampson Low, 1796.
Smith, Charlotte. Beachy Head. Joseph Johnson, 1807.
Smith, Charlotte. Celestina. T. Cadell, 1791.
Smith, Charlotte. Conversations, Introducing Poetry. Joseph Johnson, 1804.
Smith, Charlotte. Conversations, Introducing Poetry. J. Sharpe, 1815.
Smith, Charlotte. Desmond. G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1792.
Smith, Charlotte. Elegiac Sonnets. J. Dodsley, 1784.
Smith, Charlotte. Elegiac Sonnets. T. Cadell, 1789.
Smith, Charlotte. Elegiac Sonnets. T. Cadell; W. Davies, 1797.
Smith, Charlotte. “Introduction”. The Old Manor House, edited by Anne Henry Ehrenpreis, Oxford University Press, 1969, p. v - xxx.
Smith, Charlotte. “Introduction”. Emmeline, the Orphan of the Castle, edited by Anne Henry Ehrenpreis, Oxford University Press, 1971.
Smith, Charlotte. “Introduction”. Elegiac Sonnets 1789, edited by Jonathan Wordsworth, Woodstock Books, 1992.
Smith, Charlotte. “Introduction”. The Poems of Charlotte Smith, edited by Stuart Curran, Oxford University Press, 1993, p. xix - xxix.
Smith, Charlotte. “Introduction”. The Collected Letters of Charlotte Smith, edited by Judith Phillips Stanton, Indiana University Press, 2003, p. i - xlv.
Smith, Charlotte. “Introduction”. The Works of Charlotte Smith, edited by Michael Garner et al., Pickering and Chatto, 2005, p. xxix - xxxvii.
Smith, Charlotte. Letters of a Solitary Wanderer. Sampson Low, 1799.