Sarah Trimmer

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Standard Name: Trimmer, Sarah
Birth Name: Sarah Kirby
Married Name: Sarah Trimmer
ST 's writing arose out of her work for two causes, religion and education, brought most closely together in her interest in Sunday schools. She edited magazines and was a pioneer both in animal stories for children and in the reviewing of children's books. Her pedagogical concerns place her in the tradition of Barbauld and Genlis , but her sense of religion is narrower, and her writing more pedestrian. She was a populariser and an activist for better training for the poor. From the opening of her publishing career in the 1780s, her output was phenomenally high; its continuance after her death suggests a kind of production line or at least a family business.
Painting of Sarah Trimmer by Henry Howard, exhibited 1798. She sits at a table bearing books (including a bible), inkwell and spare quill pens, holding one pen and some sheets of paper (as well as her spectacles). Her grey hair is mostly covered by a white mob cap with grey ribbon round it; she wears a checked dress and a black shawl with white neckerchief and black neckband. She is smiling slightly. National Portrait Gallery.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Education Charlotte Yonge
CY , not yet five, began reading Sarah Trimmer 's Fabulous Histories (moral tales published in 1786 about baby birds, which later became The History of the Robins).
Battiscombe, Georgina, and E. M. Delafield. Charlotte Mary Yonge: The Story of an Uneventful Life. Constable and Company, 1943.
31
Education Mary Prince
MP had no education beyond what she picked up for herself. She began learning to read and spell in the family she was hired out to as a child, where one of the daughters passed...
Education Elizabeth Gaskell
Until the age of eleven, Elizabeth was taught at home by her Aunt Hannah Lumb . As befitting the Unitarian emphasis on personal freedom and rationality, she read widely, and was encouraged to make her...
Education Angela Brazil
Her home, too, contributed importantly to her education. She drew, painted, and made serious, carefully-labelled collections of wild flowers, stones, shells, and seaweed. Her first book, encountered at home when she was five and a...
Education Frances Power Cobbe
FPC received lessons from her nurse Martha Jones and from her mother . Her reading included Sarah Trimmer 's History of the Robins, Anna Barbauld 's Lessons for Children, and poetry by Jane Taylor
Education Florence Nightingale
Florence received a liberal education from her father.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2024, 22 vols. plus supplements.
She studied Latin, Greek, Italian, French, German, history, composition, and philosophy. Her reading materials included Sarah Trimmer 's New and Comprehensive Lessons, Containing a New and General...
Family and Intimate relationships Georgiana Cavendish Duchess of Devonshire
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, hired as governess to her children Sarah Trimmer 's daughter Selina . As might have been expected, Selina felt her position required her (with the support of Georgiana's mother) to try...
Family and Intimate relationships Elizabeth Cavendish Duchess of Devonshire
Eventually Lady Elizabeth's illegitimate children, so unceremoniously disposed of as babies, were brought back to England to be educated (by Selina , daughter of Sarah Trimmer ) together with Georgiana's cossetted offspring. The two Irish...
Friends, Associates Mary Wollstonecraft
On her return to London MW sought out the publisher Joseph Johnson , of 72, St Paul's Churchyard, who became her patron, helper, and friend. He introduced her to Sarah Trimmer , Anna Letitia Barbauld
Friends, Associates Jane West
JW developed correspondences with Sarah Trimmer and Bishop Thomas Percy .
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2024, 22 vols. plus supplements.
Intertextuality and Influence Anna Letitia Barbauld
Taken together, ALB 's various writings for children during her career as educator at Palgrave School exerted enormous influence on other children's writers, such as Maria Edgeworth , Sarah Trimmer , Hannah More , and...
Intertextuality and Influence Charlotte Yonge
Her vindication of unmarried women drawing intellectual and social authority from their relationship with the Church of England brings to mind Mary Astell . She appears to have learned from women writers like Sarah Trimmer
Intertextuality and Influence Anna Letitia Barbauld
The Critical Review gave high praise to each of the series. So did the Monthly, which also cracked her anonymity from the beginning.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
46 (1778): 160; 47 (1779): 320
McCarthy, William. Anna Letitia Barbauld, Voice of the Enlightenment. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.
191-2
Vulnerable as a Dissenter,...
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Moody
She has a sharp eye for gender issues, including those surrounding domestic work. The Housewife's Prayer is addressed to Economy, a name which might be loosely translated as balancing the budget, and ends with the...
Intertextuality and Influence Julia O'Faolain
The topics covered in richly informative detail, far too many to enumerate, include a father's life-or-death rights over his offspring in ancient Greece, while such topics as buying and selling sex, or the relation...

Timeline

August 1715: Isaac Watts published Divine Songs Attempted...

Writing climate item

August 1715

Isaac Watts published Divine Songs Attempted in Easy Language for the Use of Children.
Foxon, David F. English Verse 1701-1750. Cambridge University Press, 1975, 2 vols.

About 1765: Catharine Cappeimg: move in unlikely event...

Building item

About 1765

Catharine Cappe opened one of the earliest recorded Sunday schools, at Catterick in Yorkshire.
Cappe, Catharine. Memoirs of the Life of the late Mrs. Catharine Cappe. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1822.
120

1769: Hannah Ballimg: move in unlikely event of...

Building item

1769

Hannah Ball opened an early Methodist Sunday school at High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
Feminist Companion Archive.

2 August 1788: The painter Thomas Gainsborough died at the...

Building item

2 August 1788

The painter Thomas Gainsborough died at the age of sixty-two; he was buried beside his friend Joshua Kirby (father of Sarah Trimmer ) in Kew churchyard.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2024, 22 vols. plus supplements.

6 November 1798: One John Way wrote an account of a poor widow...

Building item

6 November 1798

One John Way wrote an account of a poor widow in Hasketon near Ipswich in Suffolk and her—successful—struggle to maintain her family.
Myers, Mitzi, and Andrea Immel. “Introduction”. Revolutionary Reviewing, Department of Special Collections, University Research Library, University of California, 1990, p. vii - xv.
ix-x

15 July 1819: Byron began to publish in instalments (opening...

Writing climate item

15 July 1819

Byron began to publish in instalments (opening with cantos one and two) his satirical mock-epic poem Don Juan; he left it unfinished at his death.
Chandler, James. England in 1819: The Politics of Literary Culture and the Case of Romantic Historicism. University of Chicago Press, 1998.
354
Cox, Michael, editor. The Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press, 2002, 2 vols.

5 February 1836: The children's writer Dorothy Kilner died...

Women writers item

5 February 1836

The children's writer Dorothy Kilner died at Stratford near London; she and her sister-in-law, Mary Ann Kilner (1753-1831), published their anonymous, undated works through John Marshall from the 1770s.
Yonge, Charlotte, editor. A Storehouse of Stories. Macmillan, 1870–1872, 2 vols.
1: vii-ix
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. 18 July 2011, http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
58 (1784): 319
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Texts

Trimmer, Sarah. A Comment on Dr Watts’s Divine Songs for Children. J. Buckland, 1789.
Trimmer, Sarah. A Companion to the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. T. Longman, 1791.
Trimmer, Sarah. A Comparative View of the New Plan of Education promulgated by Mr. Joseph Lancaster. F. C. and J. Rivington, and J. Hatchard, 1805.
Trimmer, Sarah. A Description of a Set of Prints of Roman History. J. Marshall, 1789.
Trimmer, Sarah. A Help to the Unlearned in the Study of the Holy Scriptures. F. C. and J. Rivington and J. Hatchard, 1805.
Trimmer, Sarah. A Plan for Promoting the Religious Observance of the Sabbath-Day. 1790.
Trimmer, Sarah. A Series of Prints of Roman History. J. Marshall, 1789.
Trimmer, Sarah. An Abridgement of the New Testament. Second Edition, F. And C. Rivington, 1797.
Trimmer, Sarah. An Easy Introduction to the Knowledge of Nature. Printed for the author, 1780.
Trimmer, Sarah. An Essay on Christian Education. F. and J. Rivington, 1818.
Trimmer, Sarah. Fabulous Histories. T. Longman, and G. G. J. and J. Robinson, and J. Johnson, 1786.
Trimmer, Sarah. Reflections upon the Education of Children in Charity Schools. T. Longman and J. and F. Rivington, 1792.
Trimmer, Sarah. Reflections upon the Education of Children in Charity Schools. Cambridge University Press, 2010, http://www.cambridge.org/series/sSeries.asp?code=CLOR.
Trimmer, Sarah. Sacred History. J. Dodsley, T. Longman and G. Robinson, and J. Johnson, 1785.
Avery, Gillian et al. “Selected Bibliography: Sarah Trimmer”. Fabulous Histories; and, The Dairyman’s Daughter, edited by Justin G. Schiller et al., Garland Publishing, 1977, p. xiv - xvi.
Trimmer, Sarah. Sermons for Family Reading. J. Hatchard, and F. C. and J. Rivington, 1811.
Trimmer, Sarah. Some Account of the Life and Writings of Mrs. Trimmer. F.C and J. Rivington and J. Johnson, and J. Hatchard, 1814, 2 vols.
Trimmer, Sarah. The Family Magazine. J. Marshall, 3 vols.
Trimmer, Sarah. The Guardian of Education. J. Hatchard, 5 vols.
Trimmer, Sarah. The Servant’s Friend. T. Longman, G. G. J. and J. Robinson, and J. Johnson , 1786.
Trimmer, Sarah. The Sunday-School Catechist. T. Longman, G. G. J. and J. Robinson, and J. Johnson, 1788.
Trimmer, Sarah. The Two Farmers. T. Longman, G. G. J. and J. Robinson, and J. Johnson , 1786.
Trimmer, Sarah. The Œconomy of Charity. T. Longman, 1787.