Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Mary Astell
-
Standard Name: Astell, Mary
Birth Name: Mary Astell
Pseudonym: A Lover of Her Sex
Pseudonym: The Author of the Proposal to the Ladies
Pseudonym: The Reflector
Pseudonym: Tom Single
Pseudonym: A very Moderate Person and Dutiful Subject of the
Queen
Pseudonym: A Daughter of the Church of England
Pseudonym: Mr Wotton
Best known as a feminist theorist and polemicist, MA
is also a fine poet and an energetic and funny controversialist on the political affairs of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. A High Anglican and High Tory in politics, she was nevertheless outspokenly radical about matters concerning gender. Her regular publisher, Rich or Richard Wilkin
, was known for his piety.
The immense and long-lasting interest aroused by Elizabeth is not, of course, primarily due to her writings, any more than were the adulation paid her during her lifetime, the cult of Gloriana, the Virgin Queen...
Textual Features
Elizabeth Elstob
EE
's preliminary list of names suggests considerable research work: it includes several ancient or Anglo-Saxon women as well as Mary Astell
, Anne Bacon
, Katherine Chidley
(as the pamphlet antagonist of Thomas Edwards
Reception
Elizabeth Elstob
When George Ballard
met Elstob years later she must have mentioned this unfinished project, for he was soon questioning her about Margaret Roper
and Mary Astell
.
Perry, Ruth, and George Ballard. “Introduction”. Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain, Wayne State University Press, pp. 12-48.
25
Publishing
Elizabeth Elstob
Its full title is An English-Saxon Homily on the Birthday of St. Gregory
, Anciently used in the English-Saxon Church. Giving an Account of the Conversion of the English from Paganism to Christianity. It...
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Elstob
She later told Anne Dewes
that she blamed herself for having neglected several overtures of acquaintance, especially the one which Lady Betty Hastings made through the intermediary of Mary Astell
while William Elstob was still...
Author summary
Fidelia
This symbolic name indicating faithfulness (which was also adopted for themselves by Mary Astell
, Jane Barker
, and the American writers Sarah Gill
, Hannah Griffitts
and Sukey Vickery
, as well as for...
Textual Production
Anne Finch
AF
wrote a religious poem for the occasion, addressed to her friend Lady Catherine Jones
(who was also a friend of Mary Astell
).
Finch, Anne. The Anne Finch Wellesley Manuscript Poems: A Critical Edition. Editors McGovern, Barbara and Charles H. Hinnant, University of Georgia Press.
126ff
Friends, Associates
Anne Finch
AF
enjoyed personal friendships with a number of distinguished men, among them Bishop Thomas Ken
. She valued female friendship very highly; women friends figure prominently in her poetry. Lady Catherine Jones
, to whom...
Textual Features
Charlotte Forman
With probably pleasurable irony and in the tradition of Mary Astell
and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
, this essay presents its author as a great admirer of the literary productions of the fair sex, which...
Intertextuality and Influence
Constantia Grierson
Other poems in the manuscript include advice to young women (a topic CG
also pursued in a prose piece), expressions of female aspiration and solidarity and of fervent religious belief (for instance in a prayer-poem...
Textual Features
Jane Harvey
In addition to quotation from Milton
, Pope
, and Thomson
, this book has a Sterne
an flavour, with passages titled from sights (like The Theatre Royal and The Merchants's Court) alternating with...
Textual Features
Mary Hays
Among the book's contents are poems and fiction (including dream visions and an Oriental tale. Titles like Cleora, or the Misery Attending Unsuitable Connections and Josepha, or pernicious Effects of early Indulgence foreground Hays's didactic...
Reception
Hildegarde of Bingen
In recent times she has made a rapid transition from being unknown to being fashionable for her music and moderately well known for her writings. Her letters were edited in English translation in 1994 and...
Occupation
William Law
On her husband's death, Elizabeth Hutcheson
, former friend of Mary Astell
, moved with Hester Gibbon
to join WL
in philosophic retirement at King's Cliffe in Northamptonshire, where they became local benefactors.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Textual Production
Jane Lead
The Theosophical Transactions attracted much attention to JL
's existing and forthcoming publications as well as to her ideas and her circle. It also included excerpts of work by others, including Mary Astell
. It...
