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.
The answer, written by a woman for a man [and now generally agreed to be by Montagu], woundingly concludes, the Fruit that can fall without shakeing / Indeed is too mellow for me.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. Essays and Poems and Simplicity, A Comedy. Editors Halsband, Robert and Isobel Grundy, Oxford University Press.
263
These...
Reception
Maria Edgeworth
ME
had more lasting influence than her predecessors on the development of the girls'-school-story tradition in English, though Sarah Fielding
's The Governess stands at the head of the genre.
Publishing
Mary Martha Sherwood
MMS
published at Wellington in ShropshireThe Governess; or, The Little Female Academy, adapted from Sarah Fielding
.
Sherwood, Mary Martha. The Governess. F. Houlston.
title-page
Author summary
Jane Collier
JC
was a remarkably innovative and experimental prose-writer of the mid-eighteenth century. She produced one anti-conduct-book, one collaborative novel (written together with Sarah Fielding
), a remarkable commonplace-book (only recently discovered), and trenchant literary-critical comments...
In the Monthly Review, Ralph Griffiths
passed a judgement which was inflected against Betsy Thoughtless by issues of gender. He guessed that the author was female because of the novel's attention to matters of...
Literary responses
Hester Lynch Piozzi
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
Literary responses
Mary Martha Sherwood
Charlotte Yonge
in 1870 wrote that MMS
had adapted the original to her own Evangelical style and had introduced one admirable fairy tale.
Yonge, Charlotte, editor. A Storehouse of Stories. Macmillan.
1: vii
Mika Suzuki
has commented on Sherwood's relation to Fielding
in...
Literary responses
Mary Collyer
Brian Alderson
noted that this may be the earliest known publication of secular stories for children in English, and called it the pearl of the Ludford Box—
Immel, Andrea. “<span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>A Christmass-Box</span>. Mary Homebred and Mary Collyer: Connecting the Dots”. Children’s Books History Society Newsletter, No. 94, pp. 1-4.
1
although he had nothing but contempt...
Literary responses
Samuel Richardson
With Clarissa's rape and death, Richardson's circle became more critical than they had been all along, and objections from them and other readers began flowing thick and fast. The whole novel was discussed in print...
Literary responses
Amelia B. Edwards
Henry Fothergill Chorley
in the Athenæum faulted the book as being something close to a textbook under the guise of entertainment. Young people, he argued, resent such books as engines of oppression.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
1788 (1862): 151
Literary responses
Evelyn Sharp
Beverly Lyon Clark
, who wrote an introduction to this book and thought extremely highly of it, argued that the neglect of it stemmed from its belonging not just to one but to several under-appreciated...
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...
Intertextuality and Influence
Jane Taylor
This is both a conduct book and a work of epistolary fiction, in the style of Sarah Fielding
's The Governess, like it much concerned with the building of friendships. JT
, who contributed...
Intertextuality and Influence
Eliza Haywood
This book's full title, with its reference to a Search after Happiness, sounds like a possible source for Sarah Fielding
's David Simple, whose hero is depicted in Search of a Real Friend...
