Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Germaine de Staël
-
Standard Name: Staël, Germaine de
Birth Name: Anne-Louise-Germaine Necker
Married Name: Anne-Louise-Germaine de Staël
Used Form: Germaine de Stael
GS
is remembered primarily for her political activism and the salons she established following the French Revolution; history, politics, and culture were certainly among her frequent literary subjects. The same interests inform her highly successful and influential novels, some short stories and, less significantly, plays. Other writings include literary criticism and personal letters.
Winegarten, Renee. Mme de Staël. Berg.
81
Her anglophilia and her attention to English literature and culture gave her particular importance for British women writers.
Among copies sent out by the author was one for Germaine de Staël
.
Douglass, Paul. Lady Caroline Lamb. Palgrave Macmillan.
185
A second edition followed the same year (with William Lamb
's permission),
Douglass, Paul. Lady Caroline Lamb. Palgrave Macmillan.
195
which contained LCL
's long preface, self-defensive...
Occupation
Amy Levy
AL
was an accomplished draughtswoman. She drew vivid sketches and scenes. Her topics at an early age included a feminist on a soapbox, and characters from Louisa May Alcott
's Little Women and Germaine de Staël
Hill, Bridget. The Republican Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian. Clarendon Press.
209
Friends, Associates
Anne Marsh
Before her marriage Anne Caldwell (later AM
) seems to have lived in close ties of friendship with the women of the Wedgwood and Darwin families, including Sarah
, wife of Josiah Wedgwood
. She...
Literary responses
Harriet Martineau
The Athenæum compared this novel favourably to the work of Jane Austen
, saying that HM
outstripped her predecessor in creating characters of a higher order of mental force and spiritual attainment, and offering to...
Textual Features
Harriet Martineau
Her subjects in the first essay are Hannah More
(especially her Practical Piety and An Essay on the Character and Practical Writings of Saint Paul) and Anna Letitia Barbauld
, whom she regarded as...
Textual Production
Elizabeth Meeke
The title-page specifies several of Du Deffand's correspondents, including Montesquieu
and Germaine de Staël
. Voltaire
's letters to Du Deffand receive special billing. Meeke presumably also provided the translations of The French Booksellers' Address...
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Meeke
The story follows its hero's unsurprising metamorphosis: he begins as the socially negligible James Treton, an orphan, assistant in an accoucheurs' and surgeon-apothecaries' practice, and ends as Arthur, Duke of Avon. It opens with nicely...
Leisure and Society
Hannah More
Once an omnivorous reader, HM
restricted her choice of books in later life, in line with her religious convictions. She delighted in William Cowper
as a poet whom I can read on Sunday.
Jones, Mary Gwladys. Hannah More. Cambridge University Press.
90
From...
Literary responses
Hannah More
Next year saw a rich crop of reviews. Sydney Smith
in the Edinburgh Review, while praising HM
's style and her skill at manipulating her readers, damned the novel as over-moralized, strained and unnatural...
Intertextuality and Influence
Charlotte Nooth
CN
refers to several canonical English names (Pope
, Reynolds
, Garrick
, Shakespeare
, and Edmund Kean
in her first poem), and relates closely to continental women. She praises Germaine de Staël
for...
This novel retells The Husband of a Blue, a story by ESP
's mother, Elizabeth Wooster Stuart Phelps
, from the perspective of Avis Dobell, a wife, mother, and would-be artist who sacrifices her...
Reception
Marion Reid
Scholar Margaret McFadden
notes that this work was tremendously successful, particularly in the United States, where it went through five editions between 1847 and 1852. The 1847 edition and all ensuing versions were printed...