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.
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
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, pp. 193-32.
228n47
The story opens shortly before the French Revolution...
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...
Textual Features
Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan
In her preface Owenson, unwisely, covered up the problems she had had with this novel by claiming to have written it in three months and never corrected it. It is mostly set in Athens (as...
Textual Features
Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan
Morgan describes chiefly Paris and its society, ostensibly on the model of Germaine de Staël
's L'Allemagne. She does indeed include French culture centrally among her topics: she criticises the works of Corneille
and...
Textual Production
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...
Textual Production
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...
Textual Production
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, p. vii - xiii.
ix
She wrote that she would rather no one had...
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...
Textual Production
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...
Textual Production
Elizabeth Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
Her subjects include such remarkable women as Bess of Hardwick
and her own friend Germaine de Staël
.
Textual Production
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...
Textual Production
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.
L. E. L.,. “Introduction”. The Fate of Adelaide, edited by Francis Jacques Sypher, Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints.
12-13
Staël, Germaine de. Corinne; or, Italy. Translators Hill, Isabel and L. E. L., A. L. Burt.
title-page
Textual Production
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...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Catherine Fanshawe
One of the poems, a delightful Ode which imitates or parodies several well-known passages in various works by Gray
, was written not by CF
but by her friend Mary Berry
, some time before...
