Mary Barber

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Standard Name: Barber, Mary
Birth Name: Mary
Married Name: Mary Barber
Pseudonym: Sapphira
Pseudonym: M. B.
MB is a domestic, small-scale, early eighteenth-century poet of charm and intelligence (remembered particularly for her writing about her children), but also an incisive, often satirical commentator on social and gender issues. Her single collection of poems was preceded by a number of separately-published pieces, mostly anonymous, not all specifically mentioned here.
Conclusion of dedication to Lord Orrery of Mary Barber's "Poems on Several Occasions", 1735, written for her by Jonathan Swift.
Title-page of Mary Barber's "Poems on Several Occasions", 1735. Some subscribers' copies have title-pages reading prematurely "1734".

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Textual Production Constantia Grierson
Mary Barber and George Ballard mention an abridged (that is, short or elementary) history of England by CG ; it is not known to have reached print. Literary historian A. C. Elias notes that as...
Textual Production Constantia Grierson
CG 's earliest poems were written to Laetitia Pilkington before either of them were married; compliments to Barber came later.
Elias, A. C., Jr. “A Manuscript of Constantia Grierson’s”. Swift Studies, Vol.
2
, 1987, pp. 33-56.
33n3
Lavoie, Chantel Michelle. Poems by Eminent Ladies: A Study of an Eighteenth-Century Anthology. University of Toronto, 1999.
217, 219
Textual Production Mary Caesar
MC told Mary Barber that she would have liked to write the history of her own times (no doubt, says Rumbold, in opposition to the publication of that title by the Whig Gilbert Burnet ).
Rumbold, Valerie. “The Jacobite vision of Mary Caesar”. Women, Writing, History, 1640-1740, edited by Isobel Grundy and Susan Wiseman, Batsford, 1992, pp. 178-98.
196
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Mary Chandler
Many of MC 's poems are occasional. She writes of female friendship (preferable to marriage, she says), of gardens (her own and those of other people), and praises lines by Mary Barber .
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Priscilla Wakefield
Despite the title, the travel in this sequel or companion to The Juvenile Travellers confines itself to the British Isles, where one of the most pressing topics of local interest is association with writers...

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Texts

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