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
Textual Production Jessie Boucherett
During the 1860s JB wrote a number of articles for the English Woman's Journal, the publication begun by Bessie Rayner Parkes and Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon (and of whose successor journal she was later editor).
Lacey, Candida Ann, editor. Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon and the Langham Place Group. Routledge.
225-77
Textual Production Ann Bridge
Susan Lowndes (daughter of novelist Marie Belloc Lowndes and so grand-daughter of suffragist Bessie Rayner Parkes ) was an old friend of AB and was resident in Portugal with her Portuguese husband. The two of...
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Charles
Her friendship with Arthur Stanley , Dean of Westminster Abbey, and his wife, Lady Augusta Stanley , helped her through her mourning period; they encouraged her to try new interests and hopes.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder.
Another dear...
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Charles
Combe Edge soon became a noted centre of religous, philanthropic, and social activity.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. I, Too, Have Lived in Arcadia. Macmillan.
343
Marie Belloc Lowndes , who stayed there for many weekends as a child with her mother, Bessie Rayner Belloc (formerly Parkes)
Material Conditions of Writing Elizabeth Charles
EC was a diligent researcher and a great reader of historical biography (though not of novels). While she was working on this book, Bessie Rayner Belloc (formerly Parkes)went to great trouble to obtain every...
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...
politics Isa Craig
Together with feminist colleagues Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon , Bessie Rayner Parkes , and Emily Davies , IC helped publicise John Stuart Mill's parliamentary nomination.
Hirsch, Pam. Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon 1827-1891: Feminist, Artist and Rebel. Chatto and Windus.
216
Textual Production Isa Craig
IC 's earliest contributions to the Waverley Journal (precursor of the English Woman's Journal) were made in conjunction with Bessie Rayner Parkes , whom she had recently met when Parkes visited Edinburgh.
Rendall, Jane. “’A Moral Engine’? Feminism, Liberalism and the <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘j’>English Woman’s Journal</span&gt”;. Equal or Different: Women’s Politics 1800-1914, edited by Jane Rendall, Basil Blackwell, 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, pp. 215-22.
218
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 <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘j’>English Woman’s Journal</span&gt”;. Equal or Different: Women’s Politics 1800-1914, edited by Jane Rendall, Basil Blackwell, 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, pp. 215-22.
218
Textual Production Isa Craig
This volume included contributions by herself, Bessie Rayner Parkes , and Mary Howitt , as well as two poems by the Rossettis: Christina 's A Royal Princess and Dante Gabriel 's Sudden Light. The...
Literary responses Isa Craig
One of the readers of the English Woman's Journal, Marian Lewes , wrote to its proprietor, Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon , to say how deeply she had been affected by Infant Seamstresses. Supposing...
Textual Production Isa Craig
Its inaugural issues included several signed articles by her. She also enlisted contributions from Bessie Rayner Parkes , including an article she had previously published in the English Woman's Journal. IC also arranged for...
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 George Eliot
Bessie Rayner Parkes (already a friend of Marian Evans—later GE ) introduced her to Barbara Leigh Smith , who became her close confidant and supporter.
Karl, Frederick R. George Eliot: Voice of a Century. W.W. Norton.
136
Family and Intimate relationships George Eliot
Lewes was married. He and his wife had agreed as rational free-thinkers that monogamy was unnatural. He had thus tolerated her relationship with his friend Thornton Hunt , and supported her children by Hunt, who...

Timeline

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Texts

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