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Patronage and Professionalism in the Writings of Hannah More, Charlotte Smith and Ann Yearsley, 1770-1806

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Patronage and Professionalism in the Writings of Hannah More, Charlotte Smith and Ann Yearsley, 1770-1806 Patronage and Professionalism in the writings of Hannah More, Charlotte Smith and Ann Yearsley, 1770-1806. Kerri Louise Andrews Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of English November 2006 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. 1 Abstract This thesis examines the changes which were occurring in the literary marketplace at the end of the eighteenth century. The place of the traditional aristocratic patrons was gradually being taken by publishers and book sellers, who were increasingly dealing with writers direct. This move away from patronage towards a new form of professionalism took place during two decades of intense political upheaval and questioning of national identity, and at a point where women writers were being seen increasingly as a natural part of literary culture. The argument is focused on three case studies of women who came to prominence in the 1780s, and explores their different experiences of life as professional writers, patrons and protegees. Their work is placed within the context of two significant political and social events; the beginnings of the movement to abolish the slave trade in 1788, and the French Revolution. In particular, the thesis enagages with the Revolution's descent into the Terror in the 1790s, and the response of British writers to this most brutal phase. Also considered are the various ways in which a literary work could be brought into print at the end of the eighteenth century, and how the three central women were able to move from one mode of publishing to another. This thesis also sets out to offer a fresh perspective on the careers of these women, and in particular to recover the reputation of Ann Yearsley as a writer of note in the 1790s. It is proposed that a broader view needs to be taken of the factors influencing literary production in the 1780s and 90s than is currently the case, and the argument is concluded with a consideration of the relationship between patronage and professionalism at the end of the eighteenth century, and an assessment of the significance of patronage in an increasingly professional literary marketplace. 2 Acknowledgements I have had cause to be grateful to a number of people over the course of the past seven years. Bill Overton, who sparked my interest in the eighteenth century. David Fairer encouraged me to develop that interest into something more. Also to my colleagues at the School of English, especially Kaley Kramer, Bonnie Latimer, Jennifer Sarha and Susan Anderson, for providing perspective, support and friendship. I am grateful for the assistance of a number of charitable bodies; Sebright's Educational Foundation, The Hugh Walker Mitchell Fund, the Mary May Sheward Fund, and the Brotherton Library Scholarship. The School of English at Leeds also granted me with a full-fees bursary which has been immensely helpful. I am also grateful for the assistance of the staff in the Special Collections at the Brotherton Library, Leeds, and in the reading rooms at the British Library. I would like to record my sincere thanks to my supervisor, Vivien Jones, who has borne the tedium of correcting my many errors with unfailing grace, and who has continued to inspire me with the belief that I had the ability to bring this project to completion. Finally, this thesis is dedicated to my parents, without whose constant love and support none of this would have been possible. 3 Contents Abstract p.1 Ackowledgments p.2 Introduction p.4 Chapter 1 p.21 Chapter 2 p.72 Chapter 3 p. 124 Chapter 4 p.174 Chapter 5 p.230 Conclusion p.286 Bibliography p.290 4 Patronage and Professionalism in the writings of Hannah More, Charlotte Smith and Ann Yearsley, 1770-1806. Introduction The last decades of the eighteenth century saw significant changes in the way material was brought into print. Increasingly, writers were able to choose how to fund publication, and many more were dealing directly with publishers. Scott Hess considers the legal case of Donaldson v. Becket in 1774 a crucial moment in defining the relationships between authors and publishers which existed at the end of the eighteenth century: When [this case] struck down the precedent of perpetual copyright under common law and defined The Statute of Anne's twenty-eight year limit as the maximum extent of such monopoly, it opened the way for authors to claim increased control over their authorial property and greater earning potential in the marketplace. The book trade was revitalized by the development of a public domain of material whose copyright had expired and which was now available for cheap reprints, and publishers were forced to court living authors more actively in order to secure new copyrights. The book boom in the late 1780s was fuelled by this development, then further fanned by the events of the French Revolution.' This shift of control in the literary marketplace towards the writers and away from the publishers occurred at the same time as one of the traditional ways for a writer to have their work published was undergoing significant change. In his study Literary Patronage in England, 1650-1800 Dustin Griffin has noted that patronage of a young writer had been common earlier in the century, but its influence went into decline as the century drew to a close.' Yet, as Griffin also notes, it did not disappear entirely. In place of the earlier aristocratic patrons came knowledgeable, well-connected middling-class patrons 1 Scott Hess, Authoring the Self: Self-Representation, Authorship, and the Print Market in British Poetry from Pope through Wordsworth (New York and London: Routledge, 2005), p. 5. 2 Dustin Griffin, Literary Patronage in England, 1650-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 5 who, instead of a famous name, could offer their proteges contacts, friendship and advice. More informal patronage relationships also developed, where writers might receive help in the promotion of their latest work or financial assistance in times of difficulty. Hess suggests that certain writers in particular needed to continue with patronage in order to succeed: 'Poets never had an easy time earning their living through sale of their works, and even in the Romantic period of supposed independence most were forced to rely on various forms of patronage or on their own independent resources." I would certainly agree that writers continued to need patronage in some way, but Hess's suggestion that they were 'forced to rely' on it does not accommodate the increasing fluidity of the literary marketplace at the end of the eighteenth century which meant patronage was but one of several options available to writers, none of which were necessarily mutually exclusive: writers could also opt to raise subscribers, a task which may have fallen to a small group of informal patrons; they could sell the copyright direct to the publisher for a fixed sum; or they could enter into a deal which saw them receive royalties should a particular book do well, choices which have been described by Jan Fergus and Janice Farrar Thaddeus." These changes to publishing culture were occurring in an increasingly fraught political climate: 1788 saw the first parliamentary debates considering the abolition of slavery, a topic that greatly concerned writers, many of whom, on both sides of the argument, rushed into print, and the last years of the eighteenth century are dominated by the French Revolution. Its early promise of Tiberte, egalite et fraternite' initially inspired affection in liberal Britain, which, as Linda Colley's now standard history of the period makes clear, wished to see France rebuilt along British lines in abandoning 3 Hess, pp. 5-6. ' 4 Jan Fergus and Janice Farrar Thaddeus, 'Women, Publishers, and Money, 1790-1820', Studies in Eighteenth-Century Cuiture,17 (1987),191-207 (193). 6 the absolute rule of the monarchy and adopting a more constitutional political system.' But the descent towards Robespierre's reign of Terror meant that affection for the Revolution became fear in all but the most radical of observers. A new patriotism began to emerge, anxious about discord in Britain and keen to figure French sympathies as disloyalty. The relationship between this climate and the literature being produced has been examined in detail by critics including Gary Kelly, Claudia Johnson, Harriet Guest and M.O. Grenby. 6 Indeed, Gary Kelly's 1993 text, Women, Writing, and Revolution is the platform on which our understanding of women's centrality to the Revolutionary debate has been built. Claudia Johnson and Harriet Guest have both usefully explored how patriotism was constructed and deployed, and in particular how women responded to the new loyalism. A more general exploration of British loyalism has been conducted by M.O. Grenby, whose work charts the various shifts which occurred as the Revolution developed, and disintegrated. The emergence of a new literary culture during this period of increasing political disquiet had a profound impact on what it meant to be female and a professional writer. As Betty Schellenberg has noted, professional authorship was understood 'as working for financial gain, seeing the publication of a novel or the production of a playas a means of economic support and, ideally, independence." Although women writers still attracted negative comments for involving themselves too forcefully in public debates (Richard Polwhele's infamous The Unsex'd Females [1798] 5 See Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993).
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