The History of British Women’s Writing, 1750–1830 The History of British Women’s Writing General Editors: Jennie Batchelor and Cora Kaplan Advisory Board: Isobel Armstrong, Rachel Bowlby, Carolyn Dinshaw, Margaret Ezell, Margaret Ferguson, Isobel Grundy, and Felicity Nussbaum The History of British Women’s Writing is an innovative and ambitious monograph series that seeks both to synthesize the work of several generations of feminist scholars, and to advance new directions for the study of women’s writing. Volume editors and contributors are leading scholars whose work collectively refl ects the global excellence in this expanding fi eld of study. It is envisaged that this series will be a key resource for specialist and non-specialist scholars and students alike. Titles include: Caroline Bicks and Jennifer Summit (editors) THE HISTORY OF BRITISH WOMEN’S WRITING, 1500–1610 Volume Two Ros Ballaster (editor) THE HISTORY OF BRITISH WOMEN’S WRITING, 1690–1750 Volume Four Jacqueline M. Labbe (editor) THE HISTORY OF BRITISH WOMEN’S WRITING, 1750–1830 Volume Five Forthcoming titles: Elizabeth Herbert McAvoy and Diane Watt (editors) THE HISTORY OF BRITISH WOMEN’S WRITING, 700–1500 Volume One Mihoko Suzuki (editor) THE HISTORY OF BRITISH WOMEN’S WRITING, 1610–1690 Volume Three History of British Women’s Writing Series Standing Order ISBN 978–0–230–20079–1 hardback (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of diffi culty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England. The History of British Women’s Writing, 1750–1830 Volume Five Edited by Jacqueline M. Labbe Selection and editorial matter © Jacqueline M. Labbe 2010 Individual chapters © contributors 2010 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010 978-0-230-55071-1 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-36198-4 ISBN 978-0-230-29701-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230297012 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 For Rod, Indie, and Nathan This page intentionally left blank Contents List of Figures ix Series Preface x Preface xii Acknowledgements xiii Notes on the Contributors xiv Chronology xvii Introduction: Defining ‘Women’s Writing’; or, Writing ‘The History’ 1 Jacqueline M. Labbe Part I 1750–1830: Overviews 1 Women and Print Culture, 1750–1830 29 Michelle Levy 2 Women’s Travel Writing, 1750–1830 47 Katherine Turner Part II 1750–1800: Revolutions in Female Writing 3 Bluestocking Women and the Negotiation of Oral, Manuscript, and Print Cultures 63 Betty A. Schellenberg 4 ‘[T]o strike a little out of a road already so much beaten’: Gender, Genre, and the Mid-Century Novel 84 Jennie Batchelor 5 Anglophone Welsh Women’s Poetry 1750–84: Jane Cave and Anne Penny 102 Sarah Prescott 6 The Poem that Ate America: Helen Maria Williams’s Ode on the Peace (1783) 125 Kate Davies 7 Picturing Benevolence against the Commercial Cry, 1750–98: Or, Sarah Fielding and the Secret Causes of Romanticism 150 Donna Landry vii viii Contents 8 Women Writers and Abolition 172 Deirdre Coleman 9 Charlotte Smith, Mary Wollstonecraft, and the Romance of Real Life 194 Stuart Curran 10 Charlotte Smith, Mary Robinson and the First Year of the War with France 207 Harriet Guest Part III 1800–1830: Worlds of Writing 11 The Porter Sisters, Women’s Writing, and Historical Fiction 233 Devoney Looser 12 Joanna Baillie’s Emblematic Theatre 254 Betsy Bolton 13 National Internationalism: Women’s Writing and European Literature, 1800–30 268 Diego Saglia 14 Jane Austen’s Critical Response to Women’s Writing: ‘a good spot for fault-finding’ 288 Olivia Murphy 15 Mary Tighe and the Coterie of Women Poets in Psyche 301 Harriet Kramer Linkin 16 Influence, Anxiety, and Erasure in Women’s Writing: Romantic becomes Victorian 321 Stephen C. Behrendt Select Bibliography 341 Index 352 List of Figures 1.1 Novel production as a percentage of the total by known male and female authors, by decade, 1750–1830 32 1.2 Named authorship of novels by men and women as a percentage of the total by gender, 1770–1830 40 6.1 Mr Trade and family, or, the state of ye Nation (1779), Library of Congress 127 6.2 The Late Bombardment of Government Castle (1782), Library of Congress 128 6.3 War of Posts (1782), Library of Congress 128 6.4 The Savages Let Loose, or The Cruel Fate of the Loyalists (1783), Library of Congress 129 6.5 The Blessings of Peace (1783), Library of Congress 130 6.6 Poor old England endeavoring to reclaim his Wicked American Children (1777), Library of Congress 131 6.7 Frontispiece, Westminster Magazine, vol. 6 (1778), Library of Congress 131 6.8 Frontispiece, Samuel Jackson Pratt, Emma Corbett, or, the Miseries of Civil War (1789 edition) ©The British Library Board. Shelfmark 12614f8 134 6.9 Joshua Reynolds, Count Ugolino and His Children (1773), Knole, The Sackville Collection, The National Trust ©NTPL/Brian Tremain 140 6.10 The Allies (1780), published by the radical printer, John Almon, Library of Congress 142 ix Series Preface One of the most significant developments in literary studies in the last quarter of a century has been the remarkable growth of scholarship on women’s writing. This was inspired by, and in turn provided inspira- tion for, a post-war women’s movement which saw women’s cultural expression as key to their emancipation. The retrieval, republication, and re appraisal of women’s writing, beginning in the mid-1960s, have radically affected the literary curriculum in schools and universities. A revised canon now includes many more women writers. Literature courses that focus on what women thought and wrote from antiquity onwards have become popular undergraduate and postgraduate options. These new initiatives have meant that gender – in language, authors, texts, audience and in the history of print culture more generally – is a central question for literary criticism and literary history. A mass of fascinating research and analysis extending over several decades now stands as testimony to a lively and diverse set of debates, in an area of work that is still expanding. Indeed so rapid has this expansion been, that it has become increas- ingly difficult for students and academics to have a comprehensive view of the wider field of women’s writing outside their own period or specialism. As the research on women has moved from the margins to the confident centre of literary studies it has become rich in essays and monographs dealing with smaller groups of authors, with particular genres and with defined periods of literary production, reflecting the divisions of intellectual labour and development of expertise that are typical of the discipline of literary studies. Collections of essays that provide overviews within particular periods and genres do exist, but no published series has taken on the mapping of the field, even within one language group or national culture. A History of British Women’s Writing is intended as just such a carto- graphic standard work. Its ambition is to provide, in ten volumes edited by leading experts in the field, and comprised of newly commissioned essays by specialist scholars, a clear and integrated picture of women’s contribution to the world of letters within Great Britain from medieval times to the present. In taking on such a wide ranging project we were x Series Preface xi inspired by the founding, in 2003, of Chawton House Library, a UK regis- tered charity with a unique collection of books focusing on women’s writing in English from 1600 to 1830, set in the home and working estate of Jane Austen’s brother. JENNIE BATCHELOR UNIVERSITY OF KENT CORA KAPLAN QUEEN MARY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Preface It is a daunting task to attempt to produce a history of British women’s writing for a period in which British women became one of the driving forces in the production of poetry, prose, non-fiction, drama: in fact, writing of all kinds.