Mary Hays

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Standard Name: Hays, Mary
Birth Name: Mary Hays
Pseudonym: Eusebia
Pseudonym: M. H.
Pseudonym: A Woman
MH is one of the best-known among the group of radical feminists surrounding Mary Wollstonecraft; she is notable for arguing from emotion, even passion, as well as reason. She wrote two novels, poetry, and a number of polemical and biographical works.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Education Fanny Holcroft
FH 's upbringing was purposely and radically progressive. Eliza Fenwick 's intention of bringing her own children up without belief in God was shaken when she found herself disgusted & shocked at the blind, coarse...
Family and Intimate relationships Eliza Fenwick
The surviving record of his birth, witnessed by Mary Hays and Henrietta Braddock , was transcribed in 1807, the year that his mother was trying to get him a place in one of the free...
Family and Intimate relationships Lady Caroline Lamb
Her mother then fell ill; Caroline was persuaded that she was to blame and in early September, her parents and husband bore her off to Bessborough House in Kilkenny, Ireland.
Douglass, Paul. Lady Caroline Lamb. Palgrave Macmillan.
126
Her exchange of...
Family and Intimate relationships Eliza Fenwick
EF wrote to Mary Hays that she had determined, if possible, to consider myself & children totally separated from [John Fenwick 's] good or bad fortunes.
Fenwick, Eliza, and Mary Hays. The Fate of the Fenwicks. Editor Wedd, Annie F., Methuen.
9
Friends, Associates Eliza Fenwick
EF was well known to many of the English radicals of the 1790s: besides those already mentioned, she knew Charlotte Smith and Samuel Taylor Coleridge .
Paul, Lissa. Eliza Fenwick, Early Modern Feminist. University of Delaware Press.
72
A particularly close and lifelong friend was Mary Hays
Friends, Associates Mary Wollstonecraft
At this time MW 's achievements were admired by Southey , Coleridge , and many English Jacobins who felt themselves oppressed. Her friends included Elizabeth Inchbald , Mary Robinson , and more warmly Eliza Fenwick
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Hamilton
She became friendly both with the conservative Dr and Mrs Gregory (through her brother)
Benger, Elizabeth Ogilvy. Memoirs of the late Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown.
1: 112-3
and with the radical Mary Hays . With the latter, however, her friendship was, for literary reasons, short-lived.
Friends, Associates Annabella Plumptre
On that November date Annabella made an attempt, by letter, to bring together their friend Amelia Alderson (later Opie) with Mary Hays . (Anne had already written to the same purpose in March, but not...
Friends, Associates Ann Batten Cristall
ABC may have met the poet George Dyer through her brother; Dyer visited at Joshua's London lodgings and had a platonic affection for Elizabeth Cristall, who was living with her brother around 1795.
Roget, John Lewis. A History of the Old Water-Colour Society. Longmans, Green.
1:190, 189
Friends, Associates Anne Plumptre
Their friends included Eliza Fenwick , Helen Maria Williams , Susannah Taylor , Mary Hays , Amelia Opie , Thomas Holcroft , John Thelwall , and other radicals. AP supported Thelwall's local electioneering, and Ann Jebb
Health Eliza Fenwick
EF described herself to Mary Hays as deaf, short-sighted, toothless, and overweight.
Fenwick, Eliza, and Mary Hays. The Fate of the Fenwicks. Editor Wedd, Annie F., Methuen.
232
Intertextuality and Influence Ann Thicknesse
The Critical Review gave this book a long notice mostly consisting of quotation but calling the collection ingenious and pleasing.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
52 (November 1781): 356
Two excerpts from AT 's work were reprinted in magazines...
Intertextuality and Influence Catherine Hutton
It seems probable that this project was sparked by Mary Hays 's biographical dictionary of women, Memoirs of Queens, Illustrious and Celebrated, which was published, incomplete, in summer 1821.
It was still at least...
Intertextuality and Influence Eliza Haywood
A more recent generation of feminist scholars has succeeded in locating EH in the developing tradition of women's fiction. Critic Mary Anne Schofield has argued that her heroines are feisty feminists. Paula Backscheider points out...
Leisure and Society Susanna Hopton
As a widow SH chose to structure her life rather like a member of a religious order. She worshipped God five times a day, with Matins at 4 a.m. even in her old Age, and...

Timeline

By 22 May 1755: George Colman and Bonnell Thornton edited...

Women writers item

By 22 May 1755

George Colman and Bonnell Thornton edited and published an anthology entitled Poems by Eminent Ladies.

January 1781-December 1782: The Lady's Poetical Magazine, or Beauties...

Writing climate item

January 1781-December 1782

The Lady's Poetical Magazine, or Beauties of British Poetry appeared, published by James Harrison in four half-yearly numbers; it is arguable whether or not it kept the first number's promise of generous selections of work...

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).

1791: Gilbert Wakefield published An Enquiry into...

Building item

1791

Gilbert Wakefield published An Enquiry into the Expediency and Propriety of Public or Social Worship, whose arguments were challenged in different ways by Anna Letitia Barbauld and Mary Hays .

2 July 1798: The conservative Lady's Monthly Museum: or...

Writing climate item

2 July 1798

The conservative Lady's Monthly Museum: or polite repository of amusement and instruction published its first number. Sometimes called The Ladies' Monthly Museum . . . it ran until the 1830s.

9 July 1798: George Canning, writing in the Anti-Jacobin,...

Women writers item

9 July 1798

George Canning , writing in the Anti-Jacobin, lambasted sensibility as a literary mode stemming from France, from Rousseau , and from diseased fancy, effeminacy, and self-obsession.

1803: The year after Mary Hays's Female Biography,...

Writing climate item

1803

The year after Mary Hays 's Female Biography, there appeared Eccentric Biography: or, Memoirs of Remarkable Female Characters, Ancient and Modern.

Texts

Hays, Mary. Appeal to the Men of Great Britain in Behalf of Women. J. Johnson; J. Bell, 1798.
Hays, Mary. “Chronology and Introduction”. The Correspondence (1779-1843) of Mary Hays, British Novelist, edited by Marilyn Brooks, Edwin Mellen, 2004, pp. xv - xx; 1.
Hays, Mary. Cursory Remarks. Knott, 1791.
Hays, Mary. Family Annals; or, The Sisters. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 1817.
Hays, Mary. Female Biography. Richard Phillips, 1803.
Hays, Mary. Harry Clinton: A Tale for Youth. J. Johnson, 1804.
Hays, Mary et al. “Introduction”. The Fate of the Fenwicks, edited by Annie F. Wedd, Methuen, 1927, p. ix - xvi.
Hays, Mary. “Introduction”. The Victim of Prejudice, edited by Eleanor Ty, Broadview, 1998, p. ix - xxxix.
Hays, Mary. Letters and Essays, Moral and Miscellaneous. T. Knott, 1793.
Hays, Mary. Memoirs of Emma Courtney. G. G. and J. Robinson, 1796.
Hays, Mary. Memoirs of Queens, Illustrious and Celebrated. T. and J. Allman, 1821.
Hays, Mary. The Brothers; or, Consequences. 1815.
Hays, Mary. The Correspondence (1779-1843) of Mary Hays, British Novelist. Editor Brooks, Marilyn, Edwin Mellen, 2004.
Fenwick, Eliza, and Mary Hays. The Fate of the Fenwicks. Editor Wedd, Annie F., Methuen, 1927.
Smith, Charlotte, and Mary Hays. The History of England. Richard Phillips, 1806.
Hays, Mary, and John Eccles. The Love Letters of Mary Hays (1779-1780). Editor Wedd, Annie F., Methuen, 1925.
Hays, Mary. The Victim of Prejudice. J. Johnson, 1799.