Mary Ann Radcliffe

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Standard Name: Radcliffe, Mary Ann
Birth Name: Mary Clayton
Married Name: Mary Ann Radcliffe
MAR wrote her feminist tract The Female Advocate from personal indignation at women's inferior earning opportunities, and her Memoirs from a wish to tell the tale of her woes and struggles. The two are not so distant as at first may seem, since they deal with the same predicament. MAR also wrote poetry; but the bunch of heterogeneous fictions attributed to her were mostly listed as by Mrs Ann Radcliffe or Mrs Radcliffe (presumably as an unscrupulous maketing ploy) before the form Mary Anne was applied to them. It is unlikely, though not impossible, that any of them was the work of the same person who wrote the feminist tract and the memoir.

Connections

Connections Author name Sort descending Excerpt
Textual Production Eugenia
The Eugenia who published The Female Advocate chose a favourite title as well as a favourite pseudonym. The title had already been used by Sarah Fyge , 1686, and was to be used again by...
Intertextuality and Influence Sarah Fielding
The novel was well reviewed. Elizabeth Carter and Catherine Talbot read it and speculated about Fielding as author. Mary Ann Radcliffe cited it in The Female Advocate in 1799.
Radcliffe, Mary Ann. The Female Advocate. Verner and Hood.
91n
Textual Features Sarah Green
This preface is headed by two Latin words (one with a faulty grammatical ending) from Ovid 's description of chaos. SG slams both male and female novelists, chiefly authors of gothic or horrid novels and...
Textual Features Maria Jane Jewsbury
MJJ used the Athenæum to express her opinions on women's writing. A review of Anna Maria Hall 's Sketches of Irish Character criticizes the author's erroneous ambition
Athenæum. J. Lection.
182 (1831): 262
in attempting to portray villains...
Textual Production Ann Radcliffe
AR was much upset when on the first, anonymous appearance of Joanna Baillie 's Plays on the Passions she was suspected of being the author: especially when she later learned that Anna Seward , for...

Timeline

8 December 1786: The Times (not yet using its final and best-known...

Building item

8 December 1786

The Times (not yet using its final and best-known title) attributed the alleged rise in the number of prostitutes to the male takeover of traditionally female jobs (for example, milliner, dress-maker, stay-maker, and so on).

By late 1799: Mary Ann Radcliffe in The Female Advocate...

Building item

By late 1799

Mary Ann Radcliffe in The Female Advocate estimated the number of poverty-stricken prostitutes in London as 5,000, and the public money spent on containing them as 20,000 pounds annually.

Texts

Radcliffe, Mary Ann. “Letter to her daughter Mrs McKenzie”. Scottish Catholic Archives.
Radcliffe, Mary Ann. “Letter to the Rev. Mr Maxwell”. Scottish Catholic Archives.
Radcliffe, Mary Ann. Manfroné. J. F. Hughes, 1809.
Radcliffe, Mary Ann. Radclife’s New Novelist’s Pocket Magazine. Thomas Brown; T. Hughes.
Radcliffe, Mary Ann. Radzivil. William Lane, 1790.
Radcliffe, Mary Ann. The Fate of Velina de Guidova. William Lane, 1790.
Radcliffe, Mary Ann. The Female Advocate. Verner and Hood, 1799.
Radcliffe, Mary Ann. The Memoirs of Mrs. Mary Ann Radcliffe. Printed for the author, 1810.
Radcliffe, Mary Ann. The Secret Oath. T. Hurst, 1802.