Bessie Rayner Parkes

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Standard Name: Parkes, Bessie Rayner
Birth Name: Elizabeth Rayner Parkes
Nickname: Bessie
Married Name: Elizabeth Rayner Belloc
Bessie Rayner Parkes (later Belloc) , a late nineteenth-century feminist, focused her writings especially on issues relating to women's work. During her life she published a collection of miscellaneous essays, a collection of vignettes, numerous articles in periodicals, a travel book, and political treatises. Though her feminist writings have been better recognized, her passion was poetry. She published a lengthy philosophical poem in addition to three volumes of poems, some of which were later compiled into a collection.
Sepia toned photograph of Bessie Rayner Parkes, seated on an upholstered chair, with an ornate table next to her. Her hands are clasped in her lap, she is wearing a dark dress with a voluminous skirt and long sleeves. She has dark, wavy, shoulder-length hair.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Friends, Associates Jane Francesca Lady Wilde
During the 1860s she and her husband formed a friendship with Bessie Rayner Parkes .
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. Diaries and Letters of Marie Belloc Lowndes, 1911-1947. Editor Marques, Susan Lowndes, Chatto and Windus, 1971.
13
Friends, Associates Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Barbara Leigh Smith (later BLSB ) and Bessie Rayner Parkes met Dr Elizabeth Blackwell , then the western world's only qualified female physician.
Herstein, Sheila R. A Mid-Victorian Feminist: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Yale University Press, 1985.
58-9
Friends, Associates Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Barbara Leigh Smith was introduced to George Eliot by Bessie Rayner Parkes ; they soon became close.
Herstein, Sheila R. A Mid-Victorian Feminist: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Yale University Press, 1985.
106
Friends, Associates Caroline Clive
Lady Byron was another of the Clives' acquaintances. Following a visit in 1843, CC wrote: That is the woman that has been tossed about by such vehement passions, by contact with such a fiery nature...
Friends, Associates Edith J. Simcox
Elma Stuart , who had also been an intimate friend of George Eliot , became a close friend of EJS . In March 1881 they spent a week together at Malvern, where they exchanged...
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Siddal
ES had met some female associates of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood : artists Anna Mary Howitt (daughter of Mary Howitt ) and Barbara Leigh Smith (later Bodichon), as well as Bessie Rayner Parkes .
Friends, Associates Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Of her diverse network of friends, BLSB wrote to an aunt in 1857, I am one of the cracked people of the world, and I like to herd with the cracked such as A.M.H. [...
Friends, Associates Isa Craig
IC met Bessie Rayner Parkes when Parkes visited Edinburgh not long before the two began contributing in conjunction to the Waverley Journal.
Rendall, Jane. “A Moral Engine? Feminism, Liberalism and the English Womans JournalEqual or Different: Womens Politics 1800-1914, edited by Jane Rendall, Basil Blackwell, 1987, pp. 112-38.
115-16
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. “A Review of the Last Six Years”. Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon and the Langham Place Group, edited by Candida Ann Lacey, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986, pp. 215-22.
218
Friends, Associates Emily Faithfull
As a member of the Langham Place GroupEF counted most of the women activists of the day among her friends. Her far-flung circle of associates included Adelaide Procter and Frances Power Cobbe .
Stone, James S. Emily Faithfull: Victorian Champion of Women’s Rights. P. D. Meany, 1994.
183, 16
Friends, Associates Christina Rossetti
Around this time she became aware of her brother Dante Gabriel 's involvement with Elizabeth Siddal , although she and Siddal met only in 1854 and were never intimate friends. Close family friends of Christina...
Friends, Associates Matilda Hays
Working on the English Woman's Journal strengthened MH 's connection to members of the Langham Place Group . The tie that she formed with with Theodosia, Lady Monson , lasted into her obscure later years...
Friends, Associates Emily Faithfull
EF suffered in various ways as a result of the trial. The sense that she had prevaricated, at the very least, alienated many of her associates on The English Woman's Journal, including Emily Davies
Friends, Associates Anne Thackeray Ritchie
ATR wrote to Charlotte Yonge a few years later, lamenting: oh! what a pity it is that we are all growing old who have had such happy happy times with one another.
Ritchie, Anne Thackeray. Anne Thackeray Ritchie: Journals and Letters. Editors Bloom, Abigail Burnham and John Maynard, Ohio State University Press, 1994.
242
She uttered...
Friends, Associates Emily Davies
When, late in life, she forbade the writing of an intimate biography but expressed her willingness that a sketch should be written, she thought such a sketch might advantageously cover both herself and Madame Bodichon...
Friends, Associates Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
In May 1869 George Eliot recorded in her diary Bodichon's steady friendship at the time when G. H. Lewes 's son Thornie was dying of tuberculosis of the spine. Bodichon visited twice a week and...

Timeline

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Texts

Parkes, Bessie Rayner. Vignettes. Alexander Strahan, 1866.