Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Sarah Scott
-
Standard Name: Scott, Sarah
Birth Name: Sarah Robinson
Nickname: Sally
Nickname: Pea
Nickname: Bridget
Married Name: Sarah Scott
Pseudonym: A Person of Quality
Pseudonym: Henry Augustus Raymond, Esq.
Pseudonym: A Gentleman on his Travels
SS
, who published during the second half of the eighteenth century, wrote for money and never signed her name to her work. She is known as a novelist; but as a historian and translator she also deserves the appellation of woman of letters, and as one who chose to pursue an alternative, carefully-thought-out, woman-centred lifestyle she deserves the appellation of feminist. Her fictional writing does not repeat itself in form but takes on new technical issues with each title. Her concerns are always those of proto-feminism: the problems of middle-class women disadvantaged by poverty, lack of beauty, and absence of outlets for their talents, and the plight of lower-class women and the disabled.
The work was dedicated to Lady Pomfret
. Its 440 subscribers included many prominent people, reflecting the bluestockings' range of influence as well as SF
's local and family connections: Ralph Allen
, Lord Chesterfield
Publishing
Mary Leapor
This time the publication was undertaken by Richardson. It was edited by Isaac Hawkins Browne
, with a much smaller subscription list, which however included Elizabeth Montagu
, Sarah Scott
, and Elizabeth Cutts
...
Though CM
's work later became synonymous with radical history, at its first appearance moderate Whigs likeThomas Gray
and Horace Walpole
thought it the most sensible, unaffected, and best history of England that we...
Literary responses
Phebe Gibbes
The notice in the Critical Review opened condescendingly. Guessing that the author was female, it warned its readers: It seldom happens that ladies equal in genius to Lennox
, Brooke
s, and Scott
, figure...
Leisure and Society
Lady Eleanor Butler
Their self-consciously utopian existence was probably modelled in part on Sarah Scott
's Millenium Hall. While the Ladies were a byword for gentility, their Irish servant Mary Carryll
was known as Molly the Bruiser...
Intertextuality and Influence
Lady Mary Walker
Meanwhile, Lady Frances begins by building one hundred dwellings (designed by Capability Brown
) to house artisans and workmen, and proceeds to construct a museum, library, astronomical observatory, an anatomy room, studios, a botanical garden...
Olivia, taught by able, progressive male teachers, has the kind of education which is generally closed to women. Besides a circle of talented friends, she supports various financially needy people, and unlike the stereotypical ugly...
Intertextuality and Influence
Anna Letitia Barbauld
ALB
's first hymn presents the world, as God creates and adorns it and pronounces it good, as a female body.
She is also alert to female precedents. Her Verses on Mrs Rowe recall...
Health
Anna Miller
The future novelist Sarah Scott
, reporting this news, wrote that Anna was now out of danger and would not be too badly scarred.
Montagu, Elizabeth. “MSS MO 1-6923”. Huntington Library Manuscripts.
1749
Friends, Associates
Bathsua Makin
BM
's brother-in-law John Pell called her a woman of great acquaintance.
Teague, Frances. Bathsua Makin, Woman of Learning. Bucknell University Press.
82
She was a lifelong friend of diarist and antiquarian Sir Simonds D'Ewes
, who had been at her father's school, and of...
Friends, Associates
Sarah Fielding
Socially speaking, Bath was a good choice for her, putting her within reach of, for instance, James Leake
and Ralph Allen
, as well as many friends visiting from London. The group comprising her, Scott