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
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
Other Life Event Mary Wollstonecraft
Response to her death began with Mary Hays 's passionate eulogy in the Monthly Magazine that very month.
Tomalin, Claire. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Penguin.
287
Literary responses Mary Wollstonecraft
The Vindication provoked a storm of comment and replies, in reviews (the Monthly was respectful both of her project and its execution, but the Critical, though its review was long and detailed, was scathingly...
Textual Features Mary Wollstonecraft
Among the whole range of MW 's letters, those in which she offered mentorship to Mary Hays exemplify her disregard for conventional politesse, her grasp on the issues surrounding female professional authorship, and her generosity...
Textual Features Anna Wheeler
The Appeal begins with an Introductory Letter to Mrs. Wheeler in which William Thompson expresses his reasons for writing the Appeal: an attempt to arrange the expression of those feelings, sentiments, and reasonings, which...
Literary responses Jane West
The Critical Review was enthusiastic about A Gossip's Story, recommending it as an antidote to the pernicious maxims of most modern sentimental novels. The reviewer said that West's frequent touches of delicate humour came...
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...
Occupation Elizabeth Strickland
ES duly began writing for children and editing a periodical, but this was a temporary measure. They formed the intention of publishing historical memoirs or biographies. (Both biography collections and the memoir as a new...
Textual Features Charlotte Smith
These letters include plenty to family and friends; most notable are those to her publishers, a whole series of them.
Fletcher, Loraine. Charlotte Smith: A Critical Biography. Macmillan.
207
Their editor, Judith Stanton , has pointed out their value in reflecting and commenting...
Textual Production Charlotte Smith
She felt she was not paid well enough for the production of the first two volumes.
Smith, Charlotte. The Collected Letters of Charlotte Smith. Editor Stanton, Judith Phillips, Indiana University Press.
403-4
Volume three was written by Mary Hays . The work took the form of a series of letters...
Literary responses Annabella Plumptre
The Critical Review thought it rather like Emma Courtney by Mary Hays (the subject of its previous notice) in its principles, and noted that The advocate for the female sex will approve it. The review...
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
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...
Literary responses Alicia Tyndal Palmer
William Gifford panned this novel in the Quarterly. He ridiculed ATP 's grasp of history and geography, and her overestimate of the cultural influence of English governesses. He presents the novel as a tedious...
Material Conditions of Writing Catharine Macaulay
CM thought of writing a history of the American War of Independence. According to Mary Hays in Female Biography, she possessed materials communicated to her by Washington himself, but that the decline in her...

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.