Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
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.
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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.
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
Jane West
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
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...
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...
Wealth and Poverty
Mary Ann Radcliffe
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...