Mary Robinson

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Standard Name: Robinson, Mary
Birth Name: Mary Darby
Married Name: Mrs Mary Robinson
Nickname: Perdita
Pseudonym: A Friend to Humanity
Pseudonym: Miss Randall
Pseudonym: Anne Frances Randall
Pseudonym: Laura
Pseudonym: Laura-Maria
Pseudonym: Julia
Pseudonym: Daphne
Pseudonym: Oberon
Pseudonym: Echo
Pseudonym: Louisa
Pseudonym: Tabitha Bramble
Indexed Name: Mrs Thomas Robinson
MR , scandalous woman and Romantic poet, was also a forceful and emotional, radical writer in many other genres: novels, scholarship, memoirs, drama, periodical essays, and translation. During the last two years of her life her level of productivity was almost frenetic, and the quality of her writing was adversely affected.
Glamorous painting of Mary Robinson, attributed to John Hoppner. She wears a black hat with wide drooping brim, adorned with white ostrich feathers which echo her big-style powdered hair. Her gown is black with lace at the low neckline and a red rose on the sleeve, echoing red drapery behind her.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Education Mary Russell Mitford
MRM was said to have learned to read by the time she was three. In January 1806 she got through fifty-five volumes, including books by Sarah Harriet Burney , Maria Edgeworth , Elizabeth Hamilton ,...
Family and Intimate relationships Grace Elliott
In her earliest years in Paris she was the mistress first of the comte d'Artois (who much later reigned as Charles X ) and then of the duc de Chartres (later duc d'Orléans , later...
Family and Intimate relationships Naomi Jacob
She describes her mother as in advance of her times in many ways: a bicycle rider, a Poor Law Guardian,
Jacob, Naomi. Me: A Chronicle about Other People. Hutchinson, 1933.
38
witty, charming, deeply religious, but with no money and no idea how to...
Family and Intimate relationships Sophia King
In SK 's life, as in her sister's, their father, John King , the former Jacob Rey, loomed large. He was a self-made man, a money-lender, a political radical and associate of Wilkes , the...
Family and Intimate relationships Charlotte Dacre
CD 's father was born Jacob Rey , a Portuguese Sephardic Jew in London. Tom Paine the radical later recalled that as a poor and friendless child in Ailiffe-Street, an obscure part of the...
Family and Intimate relationships Leah Sumbel
Most important among her various lovers was the minor writer Edward Topham , with whom her relationship approached a common-law marriage. (He had been briefly the lover of Mary Robinson .) LS says that Topham's...
Friends, Associates Anna Eliza Bray
Through her father and grandfather, AEB was introduced to the actress Mary Robinson .
Mudge, Bradford Keyes, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 116. Gale Research, 1992.
116: 51
Friends, Associates Mary Hays
This was her most formative and most famous friendship. She had approached Wollstonecraft after the latter published Vindication of the Rights of Woman early that same year. Wollstonecraft proved a valuable professional mentor. Another relationship...
Friends, Associates Mary Lady Champion de Crespigny
MLCC mentions her warm friendships with leading officers of the Royal Navy , whom she knew through her husband's position. A number of writers too, including Mariana Starke , became her personal friends.
Crawford, Elizabeth. “Posts tagged Mariana Starke”. Woman and her Sphere, 26 July 2012.
2 November 2012
Friends, Associates Eliza Fenwick
Eliza and John Fenwick were close friends of Maria Reveley , her first husband the architect Willey Reveley , and their son the architect and engineer Henry Willey Reveley . (Their son was a playmate...
Friends, Associates Jane Porter
JP was also a friend of Mary Robinson —actress, poet, and novelist—but this friendship was threatened by Robinson's position outside respectable society. When Robinson published some lines about JP in a newspaper, Mary Champion de Crespigny
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
Friends, Associates Eliza Parsons
Mary Robinson , writing to Samuel Jackson Pratt about visiting authoresses, said she expected soon to see Mrs Parsons—that is EP —at her daughter's house at Englefield Common.
This letter is now in the Pforzheimer Collection .
Robinson, Mary, and Samuel Jackson Pratt. Letter to Samuel Jackson Pratt, 31 August 1800.
Friends, Associates Leah Sumbel
Mary Wells (later LS ) drew her female friends from both the theatre and the demi-monde: they included Elizabeth Sarah Gooch and Mary Robinson , as well as the highly respectable Elizabeth Inchbald .
Friends, Associates Anna Maria Bennett
It seems that AMB was a friend of the poet and novelist Mary Robinson (whose early notoriety made some respectable women wary of friendship with her). Robinson wrote on 31st August 1800 from Englefield Cottage...

Timeline

June 1787: Thomas Bellamy launched The General Magazine...

Writing climate item

June 1787

Thomas Bellamy launched The General Magazine and Impartial Review, which continued with variations in subtitle until December 1792.
Gooch, Elizabeth Sarah, and Thomas Bellamy. “Biographical Particulars of the Author”. The Beggar Boy, Earle and Hemet, 1801, p. 1: i - xxxvi.
xxiii, xxvii, xxxvii

4 April 1788: At about the time that he lost his religious...

Writing climate item

4 April 1788

At about the time that he lost his religious faith, William Godwin began keeping a diary, which he continued almost daily until 26 March 1836, only two weeks before he died.
Clemit, Patricia. “William Godwin’s Papers in the Abinger Deposit: An Unmapped Country”. Bodleian Library Record, Vol.
xviii
, No. 3, Apr. 2004, pp. 253-63.
254-6, 258-9

June 1793: An enterprising printer and freemason, John...

Writing climate item

June 1793

An enterprising printer and freemason, John Wharlton Bunney , put out the first number of The Free-Mason's Magazine, or General and Complete Library.
Snell, Susan. “Enlightenment Females and Freemasonry”. Journal for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism, Vol.
4
, No. 1-2, 2013.

By 22 July 1797: William Beckford published a second and more...

Women writers item

By 22 July 1797

William Beckford published a second and more marked burlesque attack on women's writing: Azemia: A Descriptive and Sentimental Novel. Interspersed with Pieces of Poetry.
Beckford, William. Azemia. Sampson Low, 1797, 2 vols.
1: 21; 2: 43, 61, 236ff
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
2nd ser. 20 (1797): 470

24 November 1800: The Morning Post printed Coleridge's love-lyric...

Writing climate item

24 November 1800

The Morning Post printed Coleridge 's love-lyric Alcaeus to Sappho, which he had sent in about six weeks earlier and which was probably addressed to Mary Robinson .
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Poetical Works [of] Coleridge, including poems and versions of poems herein published for the first time. Editor Coleridge, Ernest Hartley, Oxford University Press, 1969.
253

1827: Publishers Hunt and Clarke reprinted both...

Women writers item

1827

Publishers Hunt and Clarke reprinted both Charlotte Charke and Mary Robinson in its series entitled Autobiography. A Collection of the Most Instructive and Amusing Lives ever published.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
Burmester, James et al. English Books. James Burmester Rare Books, 1985–2024, Numbered catalogues.
49 (II): 37

Texts

Robinson, Mary. Angelina. Printed for the author and sold by Hookham and Carpenter, 1796, 3 vols.
Robinson, Mary. Captivity. A Poem; and, Celadon and Julia. A Tale. T. Becket, 1777.
Robinson, Mary. Hubert de Sevrac. Printed for the author by Hookham and Carpenter, 1796, 3 vols.
Robinson, Mary. Impartial Reflections on the Present Situation of the Queen of France. John Bell, 1791.
Robinson, Mary. “Introduction”. Perdita: The Memoirs of Mary Robinson, edited by Moses Joseph Levy, Peter Owen, 1994.
Robinson, Mary. “Introduction”. Mary Robinson: Selected Poems, edited by Judith Pascoe, Broadview, 2000, pp. 19-64.
Robinson, Mary, and Samuel Jackson Pratt. Letter about visitors at Englefield Green to Samuel Jackson Pratt.
Robinson, Mary, and Samuel Jackson Pratt. Letter to Samuel Jackson Pratt, 31 August 1800.
Robinson, Mary. Lyrical Tales. Prionted by Biggs and Cottle for T. N. Longman and O. Rees, 1800.
Robinson, Mary. Mary Robinson: Selected Poems. Editor Pascoe, Judith, Broadview, 2000.
Robinson, Mary. Memoirs of the Late Mrs. Robinson. Editor Robinson, Maria Elizabeth, R. Phillips, 1801, 4 vols.
Robinson, Mary. Monody to the Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds. J. Bell, 1792.
Robinson, Mary. Monody to the Memory of the Late Queen of France. Printed by T. Spilsbury and Son and sold by J. Evans and T. Becket, 1793.
Robinson, Mary. Ode to the Harp of the Late Accomplished and Amiable Louisa Hanway. John Bell, 1793.
Robinson, Mary. Perdita: The Memoirs of Mary Robinson. Editor Levy, Moses Joseph, Peter Owen, 1994.
Hager, Giuseppe. Picture of Palermo. Translator Robinson, Mary, R. Phillips, 1800.
Robinson, Mary. Poems. C. Parker, 1775.
Robinson, Mary. Poems. J. Bell; J. Evans, 1793, 2 vols.
Robinson, Mary. Sappho and Phaon. Printed by S. Gosnell for the Author, 1796.
Robinson, Mary. Sight, The Cavern of Woe, and Solitude. Printed by T. Spilsbury and sold by J. Evans, 1793.
Robinson, Mary. The False Friend. T. N. Longman and O. Rees, 1799, 4 vols.
Robinson, Mary. The Lucky Escape. Printed for the author, 1778.
Robinson, Mary. The Natural Daughter. T. N. Longman and O. Rees, 1799, 2 vols.
Robinson, Mary. The Poetical Works of the Late Mrs. Mary Robinson. Editor Robinson, Maria Elizabeth, R. Phillips, 1806, 3 vols.
Robinson, Mary. The Sicilian Lover. Printed for the author, by Hookham and Carpenter, 1796.