Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Anna Letitia Barbauld
-
Standard Name: Barbauld, Anna Letitia
Birth Name: Anna Letitia Aikin
Nickname: Nancy
Married Name: Anna Letitia Barbauld
Pseudonym: A Dissenter
Pseudonym: A Volunteer
Pseudonym: Bob Short
Used Form: Mrs Barbauld
Used Form: Anna Laetitia Barbauld
ALB
, writing and publishing in the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century, was a true woman of letters, an important poet, revered as mouthpiece or laureate for Rational Dissent. Her ground-breaking work on literary, political, social, and other intellectual topics balances her still better-known pedagogical works and writings for the very young. During her lifetime an extraordinary revolution in public opinion made her vilified as markedly as she had been revered.
The first visit which Mary Anne Galton (later MAS
) made away from home was a month at Hampstead with Anna Letitia Barbauld
.
Schimmelpenninck, Mary Anne. Life of Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck. Editor Hankin, Christiana C., Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1858, 2 vols.
2: 7
Friends, Associates
Hannah More
Her later friendships often blended the personal with the political, like those with Beilby Porteus
(Bishop of London from 1787, where she met him) and the abolitionists William Wilberforce
(met at Bath the same year)...
In her memoirs LA
claims to have been acquainted with all the notable literary women of her time. She was a close friend of Joanna Baillie
and Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger
. Another important friend and...
Cottle, Joseph. Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey. 2nd ed., Houlston and Stoneman, 1847.
54
Algernon Knox
(a precursor of late Victorian High Churchmanship), Anna Letitia Barbauld
, Elizabeth Fry
, and a goodly...
Friends, Associates
Amelia Opie
AO
's friendship with Anne
and Annabella Plumptre
(daughters of Robert Plumptre
, Prebend of Norwich, both of whom grew up to be writers) dated from their shared childhood.
Plumptre, Anne. “Introduction”. Something New, edited by Deborah McLeod, Broadview, 1996, p. vii - xxix.
xxvi, ix-x
Her friendship with the...
Friends, Associates
Amelia Opie
In London she met many artists, writers, and politically active reformists: as well as Godwin
, she met Elizabeth Inchbald
, Mary Wollstonecraft
(who impressed her deeply, and trusted her enough to confide her plans...
Friends, Associates
Joanna Baillie
Over the course of her long life JB
made dozens of well-loved friends, many of them either professional writers like herself or else writing amateurs. They included Lucy Aikin
, Mary Berry
, Eliza Fletcher
Friends, Associates
Ann Taylor Gilbert
Ann was sorry that Joanna Baillie
had left Colchester before theTaylors arrived there; but her intense, but humble, yearnings to encounter a live author
Gilbert, Ann Taylor. Autobiography and Other Memorials of Mrs. Gilbert. Editor Gilbert, Josiah, H. S. King, 1874, 2 vols., http://U of A, HSS Ruth N .
1: 182
were gratified by meeting Anna Laetitia Barbauld
in London...
Friends, Associates
Eliza Fletcher
On her first visit to London, EF
met Joanna Baillie
(with whom her friendship endured for years) and Anna Letitia Barbauld
.
Fletcher, Eliza. Autobiography of Mrs. Fletcher, of Edinburgh. Editor Richardson, Mary, Lady, Printed at the offices of C. Thurman for private circulation, 1874.
71
Friends, Associates
Joanna Baillie
Scott was in London in February this year. She corresponded with him for years, discussing their own and others' literary works along with family news. Baillie tried tactfully to explain to him the right way...
Friends, Associates
Harriet Martineau
Anna Letitia Barbauld
visited HM
's mother from time to time. HM was impressed by the stamp of superiority on all she said.
Barbauld's niece Lucy Aikin
was another family friend. One acquaintance...
Intertextuality and Influence
Anne Grant
Leaving these images of militarism and turning back to Britain with Princess Charlotte
in mind, AGcast[s] a forward glance to hope again / Protracted blessings in a female reign,
Grant, Anne. Eighteen Hundred and Thirteen. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown; J. Ballantyne, 1814.
48
looking to Charlotte to...
Intertextuality and Influence
Harriet Martineau
Writing to Mary Russell Mitford
of her hope that they might meet, HM
acknowledged the influence which the spirit of your writings has had over me.
qtd. in
L’Estrange, Alfred Guy Kingham, editor. The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford as Recorded in Letters from Her Literary Correspondents. Hurst and Blackett, 1882, 2 vols.
Influences on AR
's writings include the opera, contemporary travel writers, and Joseph Priestley
's Course of Lectures on Oratory and Criticism, 1777.
Norton, Rictor. Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Ann Radcliffe. Leicester University Press, 1999.
67
AR
probably helped to produce the fashion for literary quotation...
