Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Sarah Fielding
-
Standard Name: Fielding, Sarah
Birth Name: Sarah Fielding
Pseudonym: A Lady
Pseudonym: The Author of David Simple
SF
, best known as a mid-eighteenth-century novelist, tried a range of other genres as well: history, criticism, a play, a translation, and a landmark children's book which is both a work of pedagogy and commonly billed as the first school story for girls. Her reputation is gradually emerging from the shadow of her brother Henry
's and enabling recognition of her status as a woman of letters, and her pivotal position in the history of the novel.
CR
demonstrates the widest possible reading: from Homer
, Virgil
and Horace
(all revered) and Juvenal
and Persius
(used to prove that not all classical authors are admirable) through the heroic romances like those of...
Intertextuality and Influence
Mary Ann Radcliffe
MAR
focuses on the impossibility for middle-class women of earning an honest living, and the gradual male takeover of traditionally female jobs. She laments the fact that men no longer offer women adequate protection, and...
An early poem in her praise, perhaps written by Sarah Fielding
, mentions her literary accomplishments. She too prided herself intensely on them.
Clifford, James L. Hester Lynch Piozzi (Mrs Thrale). Clarendon Press.
27-30
Textual Production
Teresia Constantia Phillips
The narrator claims not to be TCP
, but a close male friend. A prime suspect is the hack writer Paul Whitehead
, who was one of her lovers. Nevertheless the tone has convinced many...
Textual Features
Sarah Murray
The preface to this volume dwells on preserving female purity and delicacy, on good education, and on the potentially harmful effect of novels. The author says she aims not only at giving some small assistance...
She met Sarah Fielding
at Richardson's house, and became friendly also with Henry Fielding
, Saunders Welch
(the philanthropist, who later offered her employment), and Lord Orrery
. She was presumably the Mrs Lenox with...
Textual Production
Charlotte Lennox
She had written most of it by November 1751. With Johnson
as mediator, she consulted Richardson
about revisions, denouement, optimum length (she reduced her plan from three volumes to two), and about her choice of...
Textual Features
Charlotte Lennox
The novel's opening is an early example of a technique which was to remain popular with authors for generations: About the middle of July 17 — . . . , where the precise day and...
Intertextuality and Influence
Charlotte Lennox
Again Lennox gives her chapters titles which foretell their contents in the FieldingSarah Fielding
manner. Of the sister heroines, Harriot is beautiful and spoiled by her mother, a less forgiveable coquette than her namesake in Harriot...
Intertextuality and Influence
Charlotte Lennox
For the plot Lennox cannibalized material from her novel Henrietta: Henrietta becomes Harriet Courtney; her brother becomes the dominant character, and the last third of the novel is dropped. The obstacles to Harriet's marriage...
Textual Features
Mary Latter
The first letter, the earliest piece in the volume, was said to have been written seventeen years ago at the age of seventeen: to Myra, which suggests that ML
may have been one among...
Intertextuality and Influence
Mary Lamb
M. B.'s purpose in story-telling is not moral improvement but making little girls feel better (the youngest is seven): cheering them up since, newly sent to boarding school, they are crying for home; alleviating their...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Julia Kavanagh
In this second work of women's literary history, JK
once again limits herself to the novel. Her canon comprises ten authors, from Aphra Behn
to Sydney Morgan
by way of Sarah Fielding
, Frances Burney
