Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis
-
Standard Name: Genlis, Stéphanie-Félicité de
Birth Name: Caroline Stéphanie Félicité Ducrest
Married Name: Caroline Stéphanie Félicité de Genlis
Titled: Caroline Stéphanie Félicité, comtesse de Genlis
Used Form: Stephanie-Felicite de Genlis
Used Form: Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis, Countess of Genlis and Marchioness
of Sillery
SFG
, French aristocrat, royal mistress, and later a political refugee in England, made her mark as an educational theorist and writer for children (plays, stories, and good advice) during the decade leading up to the French Revolution. She also published adult novels, romances, and an autobiography. In England at least it was her writing for children that was admired and influential.
A version of children's plays by Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis
, The Theatre of Education. A New Translation from the French, appears to be the anonymous work of MS
and the little-known Millecent Thomas
(formerly Parkhurst).
Dow, Gillian. “The British Reception of Madame de Genlis’s Writings for Children: Plays and Tales of Instruction and Delight”. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
29
, No. 3, pp. 367-81.
369
Pitcher, Edward W. “Mariana Starke and Millecent Thomas: Early Translators of Genlis’s <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>Le théâtre à l’usage des jeunes personnes (1779-1780)</span>”;. Notes and Queries, Vol.
45 (243)
, No. 1, pp. 81-2.
81-2
Textual Production
Mariana Starke
It seems that she had begun to learn stagecraft in translating from Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis
. The comedy was anonymously published in the year of its performance; a Dublin and another London edition quickly followed...
Education
Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan
Their father sent them there so that, following his wife's death and his bankruptcy, he could join a travelling company. At this Huguenot, French-speaking school they met the daughters of politician Henry Grattan
and those...
Morgan describes chiefly Paris and its society, ostensibly on the model of Germaine de Staël
's L'Allemagne. She does indeed include French culture centrally among her topics: she criticises the works of Corneille
and...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Elizabeth Sophia Tomlins
Her protagonist, Theresa Morven, has until three years before the story opens been buried in a French convent at the behest of her stepmother, whom, however, she steadfastly refuses to hate. (Her own mother died...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Melesina Trench
About the first twenty pages are occupied by MT
's early reminiscences, probably written not long after her first husband's death: she frankly recorded her emotional disturbance over that event.
Trench, Melesina. The Remains of the Late Mrs. Richard Trench. Editor Trench, Richard Chenevix, Parker and Bourn.
18
Later pages mix letters...
Author summary
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...
Textual Features
Sarah Trimmer
This use of instruction cards was innovative, at least in England. ST
may or may not have known of the cards issued by Sarah Scott
and Lady Barbara Montagu
in April 1759 (which failed as...
Textual Features
Sarah Trimmer
In addition to Catharine Cappe
's work on Sunday schools and versions of fairy stories by Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy
, the magazine reviewed work by a whole library of didactic, pedagogical, or improving writers, reprinted as...
Textual Features
Katharine Tynan
Lord Edward was a nephew of KT
's earlier fictional subject, Lady Sarah Lennox
. A highly romantic, aristocratic revolutionary, he died of his wounds in prison on 4 June 1798, after the Rebellion of...
Friends, Associates
Helen Maria Williams
In Paris HMW
frequented Mme Roland
's salon, and she and Stone
became close friends of Roland and her husband
. Those who visited HMW
early in her time in Paris included Mary Wollstonecraft
(who...
Textual Features
Mary Wollstonecraft
These stories (told by the governess Mrs Mason to her pupils with the explicit aim of improving their characters) reflect the specific influence of Tales of the Castle by Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis
. Mrs Mason...
Textual Features
Mary Wollstonecraft
Though only about twenty percent of its extracts are written by women (the same proportion as from the Bible),
McCarthy, William. Anna Letitia Barbauld, Voice of the Enlightenment. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
501
this book is feminist in its emphasis on the virtue of independent judgement as...
Publishing
Mary Wollstonecraft
It was dedicated to the French statesman Talleyrand
, a supporter of the Revolution and the reputed lover of Germaine de Staël
. She produced a second, revised edition by the end of the year...
