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.
qtd. in
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, 1990.
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, 23 Jan. 2014, 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
Family and Intimate relationships Matilda Charlotte Houstoun
Having become engaged at sixteen, Matilda Charlotte Jesse was still very young when she married the Rev. George Lionel Fraser , who was some years older and was probably at this time vicar of Kinlet...
Family and Intimate relationships Eliza Parsons
Her next child, Mary, was baptised in Plymouth on 30 April 1762, and a son, William, on 13 February 1765. In all she had eight children, five daughters and three sons. All of the sons...
Friends, Associates William Cowper
Notable among Cowper's other friends were the Rev John Newton (a former slave-trader who since his conversion had become a hellfire Evangelical preacher), Lady Austen (who set him the writing task commemorated in the title...
Friends, Associates Mary Tighe
Before she left London, MT met there her fellow Irish poet Tom Moore . He subsequently visited her in Dublin and complimented her in verse. She exchanged poems with Barbarina Wilmot (later Lady Dacre) ...
Friends, Associates Eliza Fenwick
EF was well known to many of the English radicals of the 1790s: besides those already mentioned, she knew Charlotte Smith and Samuel Taylor Coleridge .
Paul, Lissa. Eliza Fenwick, Early Modern Feminist. University of Delaware Press, 2019.
72
A particularly close and lifelong friend was Mary Hays
Friends, Associates Robert Southey
Having early in his life admired writers like Mary Wollstonecraft and Charlotte Smith , he later numbered women writers such as Anna Eliza Bray among his close friends.
Friends, Associates Clara Reeve
Among her friends were Martha Bridgen (daughter of Samuel Richardson ), Thomas Percy , and Joseph Cooper Walker
Trainer, James, and Clara Reeve. “Introduction”. The Old English Baron, Oxford University Press, 1977.
xviii
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
(who was also a good friend to other women writers from around the British Isles: to...
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Cobbold
EC corresponded with members of the London scientific intelligentsia: Sir James Edward Smith , first President of the Linnean Society (who encouraged Charlotte Smith to introduce botanical information into her novels, but proved singularly unhelpful...
Intertextuality and Influence Ann Radcliffe
The heroine, Adeline, is not merely a poet but also a genius. Her poems are interspersed in the narrative, which is the earliest example of the mature Radcliffe formula with the typical Radcliffe villain, Phillipe...
Intertextuality and Influence Judith Sargent Murray
She backs this pleasure in modernity with a remarkable grasp of former female history and of the women's literary tradition in English and its contexts. She mentions the Greek foremother Sappho , the patriotic heroism...
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...
Intertextuality and Influence Ann Radcliffe
Influences on AR 's writings include the opera, contemporary travel writers, and Joseph Priestley 's Course of Lectures on Oratory and Criticism, 1777.
Norton, Rictor. Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Ann Radcliffe. Leicester University Press, 1999.
67
AR probably helped to produce the fashion for literary quotation...
Intertextuality and Influence Eliza Haywood
A more recent generation of feminist scholars has succeeded in locating EH in the developing tradition of women's fiction. Critic Mary Anne Schofield has argued that her heroines are feisty feminists. Paula Backscheider points out...
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, 1999.
135-6
Intertextuality and Influence Mrs F. C. Patrick
The narrative is at first somewhat flat-footed in its insistence that this is not a novel, but it acquires further flavour whenever the old gentleman telling it becomes self-referential. His daughter, he says, acts the...

Timeline

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

Writing climate item

1731

Antoine-François Prévost published the first form of his novel Manon Lescaut.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

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.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Editor Wharncliffe, James Archibald Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie, first Baron, Richard Bentley, 1836, 3 vols.
3: 191
Newman, Gerald, editor. Britain in the Hanoverian Age, 1714-1837: An Encyclopedia. Garland, 1997.
778

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.
Curran, Stuart. “Reading with Both Hands: The Dialog of Novelist and Poet”. American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS) Conference, Boston, MA, 27 Mar. 2004.

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.
Shevlin, Elinor. “’It is the intention of the Editor’: Griffith’s, Harrison’s, and Cooke’s collections and the making of the English novel”. American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS) Conference, New Orleans, LA, 21 Apr. 2001.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
Fleeman, John David, and James McLaverty. A Bibliography of the Works of Samuel Johnson. Clarendon Press, 2000, 2 vols.
2: 1023

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.
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
59 (1789): 292

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.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
67 (1789): 504

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.
Crossley-Seymour, Aaron, and Charlotte Brooke. “A Memoir of Miss Brooke”. Reliques of Irish Poetry, J. Christie, 1816, p. 1: iii - cxxviii.
lxix note

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...

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.
Beckford, William. Azemia. Sampson Low, 1797, 2 vols.
1: 21; 2: 43, 61, 236ff
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
2nd ser. 20 (1797): 470

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.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
2nd ser. 36 (1802): 413

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.
Burney, Sarah Harriet. The Letters of Sarah Harriet Burney. Editor Clark, Lorna J., University of Georgia Press, 1997.
93 n1

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.
Eger, Elizabeth. “Fashioning a Female Canon: Eighteenth-Century Women Poets and the Politics of the Anthology”. Women’s Poetry in the Enlightenment, The Making of a Canon 1730-1820, edited by Isobel Armstrong and Virginia Blain, St Martin’s Press, 1998, pp. 201-15.
210-11
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, 1870, 2 vols.
2: 81
Salzman, Paul. “How Alexander Dyce Assembled Specimens of British Poetesses: A Key Moment in the Transmission of Early Modern Women’s Writing”. Women’s Writing, Vol.
26
, No. 1, Feb. 2019, pp. 88-105.
88-9, 91, 95-6, 97, 98, 101

Texts

Smith, Charlotte. A Narrative of the Loss of the Catharine, Venus, and Piedmont Transports. 1st ed., Sampson Low, 1796.
Smith, Charlotte. Beachy Head. 1st ed., Joseph Johnson, 1807.
Smith, Charlotte. Celestina. 1st ed., T. Cadell, 1791, 4 vols.
Smith, Charlotte. Conversations, Introducing Poetry. 1st ed., Joseph Johnson, 1804, 2 vols.
Smith, Charlotte. Conversations, Introducing Poetry. J. Sharpe, 1815.
Smith, Charlotte. Desmond. 1st ed., G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1792, 3 vols.
Smith, Charlotte. Elegiac Sonnets. 1st ed., J. Dodsley, 1784.
Smith, Charlotte. Elegiac Sonnets. 5th ed., T. Cadell, 1789.
Smith, Charlotte. Elegiac Sonnets. T. Cadell; W. Davies, 1797, 2 vols.
Smith, Charlotte. Elegiac Sonnets 1789. Editor Wordsworth, Jonathan, 5th ed., Woodstock Books, 1992.
Smith, Charlotte. Emmeline. 1st ed., T. Cadell, 1788, 4 vols.
Smith, Charlotte. Emmeline. Editor Ehrenpreis, Anne Henry, Oxford University Press, 1971.
Smith, Charlotte. Ethelinde. 1st ed., T. Cadell, 1789, 5 vols.
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. 1st ed., Sampson Low, 1799, 2 vols.
Prévost d’Exiles, Antoine-François. Manon Lescaut. Translator Smith, Charlotte, T. Cadell, 1786, 2 vols.
Smith, Charlotte. Marchmont. 1st ed., Sampson Low, 1796, 4 vols.
Smith, Charlotte. Minor Morals. 1st ed., Sampson Low, 1798, 2 vols.
Smith, Charlotte. Montalbert. 1st ed., Sampson Low, 1795, 3 vols.
Smith, Charlotte, and William Godwin. “Prologue”. Antonio, 1st ed., G. G. and J. Robinson, 1800.