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, 1985.
81
Her anglophilia and her attention to English literature and culture gave her particular importance for British women writers.
The second story, The History of a Nonchalant is an early fictional treatment of religious doubt as suffered by its intellectual male protagonist, Charles. He travels to Rome, where he marries an Italian poet...
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 Features
Julia Kavanagh
In her preface JK
explains her interest in the rise of the novel and argues that novels have become the teachers for good or for evil of many; their power can be exalted or deplored—it...
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Helen Craik
Authors quoted on HC
's title-page include La Rochefoucauld
. Mary Robinson
's Walsingham is quoted in volume two and supplies the epigraph for volume three.
Craciun, Adriana, and Kari E. Lokke, editors. “The New Cordays: Helen Craik and British Representations of Charlotte Corday, 1793-1800”. Rebellious Hearts: British Women Writers and the French Revolution, State University of New York Press, 2001, pp. 193-32.
228n47
The story opens shortly before the French Revolution...
Textual Features
Julia Kavanagh
JK
successfully blends scholarly knowledge with popular style. Her historical and critical opinions are still well worth reading. On the great length of Scudéry
's romances, she cites a contemporary reader who had reached page...
Textual Features
Edith Sitwell
This book depends on poking fun at its subjects, and invites its readers to join in Sitwell's superior amusement. Some of her subjects deserve better, like Margaret Fuller
, who (despite the adjective in the...
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Mary Matilda Betham
MMB
's collateral descendant Ernest Betham
makes much use in relating her family history of a Memorandum Book, from my Birth, 1776, till July, 1795, which covers some of the functions of both autobiography...
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Catherine Fanshawe
The letter that CF
wrote about her first meeting with Germaine de Staël
(also, apparently, her first meeting with Byron
) concentrates firmly on de Staël: Eloquence is a great word, but not too big...
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L. E. L.
LEL
contributed metrical versions of the heroine's improvisations to Isabel Hill
's influential (though unwilling) translation of Germaine de Staël
's Corinne.
The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870. http://replay.web.archive.org/20070714065452/http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~asp/v2/home.html.
qtd. in
L. E. L.,. “Introduction”. The Fate of Adelaide, edited by Francis Jacques Sypher, Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1990.
12-13
Staël, Germaine de. Corinne; or, Italy. Translators Hill, Isabel and L. E. L., A. L. Burt, 1857.
title-page
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Mary Wollstonecraft
It was dedicated to the French statesman Talleyrand
, a supporter of the Revolution and the reputed lover of Germaine de Staël
. She produced a second, revised edition by the end of the year...
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Lydia Maria Child
In 1832 appeared The Biographies of Madame de Staël
and Madame Roland and The Biographies of Lady Russell
and Madame Guyon. The following year came Good Wives—which in later editions sometimes appeared as...
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Jane Austen
John Murray
was apparently planning a collected edition of JA
's novels in 1831, when Cassandra Austen
wrote on 20 May with detailed queries about it, but the project did not go through. A year...
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Elizabeth Grant
She also admitted a hope that, if published, the journal might turn a profit for her children, but felt ambivalent about becoming a published author.
Grant, Elizabeth. “Introduction”. The Highland Lady in Ireland, edited by Andrew Tod, Canongate, 1991, p. vii - xiii.
ix
She wrote that she would rather no one had...
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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...
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Elizabeth Cavendish Duchess of Devonshire
Her subjects include such remarkable women as Bess of Hardwick
and her own friend Germaine de Staël
.
