Charlotte Smith

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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.
36
, No. 2, pp. 17-19.
19
Stipple engraving by Pierre Condé of Charlotte Smith, from portrait by George Romney, 1792, in the National Portrait Gallery. The engraving appeared as frontispiece to volume 2 of "Elegiac Sonnets", 8th ed., 1797. This is a head-and-shoulders view. She is looking down, wearing a simple, light, gauzy dress, and a high bonnet with a large bow in front over her curling hair. The portrait is surrounded by a decorative swirl design, and underneath her name is written in block letters.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Leisure and Society Jane Austen
Art historian Richard James Wheeler , a strong supporter of the Rice portrait, also argued that a watercolour sketch by James Stanier Clarke , the Prince of Wales's librarian (a full-length portrait of only six...
Intertextuality and Influence Jane Austen
JA 's biographer Claire Tomalin lists those women writers who were most important to her, for learning rather than for mockery, as Charlotte Lennox , Frances Burney , Charlotte Smith , Maria Edgeworth , and...
Literary responses Jane Austen
But of readers whose responses survive, most were delighted. These included Sarah Harriet Burney —who, however, thought (apparently along with plenty of others) that Catherine Ann Dorset , sister of Charlotte Smith , might be...
Intertextuality and Influence Anne Bannerman
Her model for the sonnet, as well as for the use of male erotic voices from Petrarch and Goethe , was Charlotte Smith , though AB 's tone is more unrestrained and impassioned than Smith's.
Elfenbein, Andrew. Romantic Genius: The Prehistory of a Homosexual Role. Columbia University Press.
135-6
Textual Features Anna Letitia Barbauld
The series has a general introduction, On the Origin and Progress of Novel-Writing, and a Preface, Biographical and Critical for each novelist, which in its echo of the full and original title of Johnson's...
Textual Features Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger
EOB writes in terms of a women's tradition: for instance, she praises Barbauld for praising Elizabeth Rowe . She makes confident judgements and attributions (she is sure that Lady Pakington is the real author of...
Occupation William Lisle Bowles
WLB 's sonnets, which formed the basis of his reputation as a poet, first appeared in 1789, five years after those of Charlotte Smith and shortly after her lavish, illustrated fifth edition. Bowles always denied...
Publishing Charlotte Brooke
Her father had cherished a never-executed project for a history of ancient Irish literature.
Ashley, Leonard R. N. et al. “Introduction”. Reliques of Irish Poetry, Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, p. v - xv.
vi
She had issued Proposals for this work the year before publication. The Houghton Library copy of the Proposals incorporates a...
Textual Production Mary Bryan
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...
Literary responses Sarah Harriet Burney
Charles Burney , too, slighted his youngest daughter's work in comparison with the elder's.
Burney, Sarah Harriet. “Editor’s Introduction”. The Letters of Sarah Harriet Burney, edited by Lorna J. Clark, Georgia University Press.
lxii
Jane Austen later noted that Clarentine seemed good on the first reading, not so good on the second, and unnatural...
Publishing Sarah Harriet Burney
While struggling to finish this work, SHB called it my own eternal rubbish
Burney, Sarah Harriet. The Letters of Sarah Harriet Burney. Editor Clark, Lorna J., University of Georgia Press.
130
and my long plague.
Burney, Sarah Harriet. The Letters of Sarah Harriet Burney. Editor Clark, Lorna J., University of Georgia Press.
153
By October 1811 she felt she had her plot organised and almost all her allocations of...
Textual Production Lady Eleanor Butler
Sarah Ponsonby bequeathed the journals to Caroline Hamilton , and Harriet Pigott therefore supposed that they were written by Ponsonby .
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.
vii
They have been published in several selections: by Mrs G. H. [Eva Mary] Bell
names Medora Gordon Byron
At the date of the first Miss Byron novel, Elizabeth Strutt was publishing as Mrs Byron while the poet George Gordon, Lord Byron , had had only a single juvenile collection reviewed. While the name...
Textual Features Ada Cambridge
It opens with the title-poem of about 650 lines, The Old Manor House, which tells the tragic story of two young lovers, Guy and Margaret, who are kept apart because of the impossible circumstances...
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...

Timeline

1731: Antoine-François Prévost published the first...

Writing climate item

1731

Antoine-François Prévost published the first form of his novelManon Lescaut.

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...

Writing climate item

By June 1796

Samuel Taylor Coleridge compiled a booklet titled Sonnets from Various Authors: four each by himself, Southey , Charles Lamb , and Charles Lloyd , two by Charlotte Smith , and one each by seven more writers including Anna Seward .

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,...

Writing climate item

1804

The publisher George, George, and John Robinson , whose list of women writers had been distinguished, went bankrupt.

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. Elegiac Sonnets 1789. Editor Wordsworth, Jonathan, Woodstock Books, 1992.
Smith, Charlotte. Emmeline. T. Cadell, 1788.
Smith, Charlotte. Ethelinde. T. Cadell, 1789.
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.
Prévost d’Exiles, Antoine-François. Manon Lescaut. Translator Smith, Charlotte, T. Cadell, 1786.
Smith, Charlotte. Marchmont. Sampson Low, 1796.
Smith, Charlotte. Minor Morals. Sampson Low, 1798.
Smith, Charlotte. Montalbert. Sampson Low, 1795.
Smith, Charlotte, and William Godwin. “Prologue”. Antonio, 1stst ed, G. G. and J. Robinson, 1800.
Smith, Charlotte. Rural Walks. T. Cadell, Jr. and W. Davies, 1795.