Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Frances Reynolds
-
Standard Name: Reynolds, Frances
Nickname: Fanny
Nickname: Renny
FR
, active in the later eighteenth century, was the author of poems (one printed), a published treatise on aesthetics, essays diary entries, and a memoir of Samuel Johnson
which reached print years after her death. She was also a painter of miniatures, genre pieces, portraits, and history paintings. Yet she has the misfortune of being remembered mostly in context of the eminent men she knew, particularly her brother Sir Joshua Reynolds
.
Wendorf, Richard. Sir Joshua Reynolds. Harvard University Press, 1996.
SF
's most important sibling was her brother Henry
, first as the eldest child and later as a highly successful novelist and playwright (as well as theatre manager and lawyer). She kept house for...
Friends, Associates
Charlotte Lennox
She met Sarah Fielding
at Richardson's house, and became friendly also with Henry Fielding
, Saunders Welch
(the philanthropist, who later offered her employment), and Lord Orrery
. She was presumably the Mrs Lenox with...
Friends, Associates
Hannah More
Here she began to gather the circle of friends which by the end of her long life had touched every cranny of English society. She had already met Edmund Burke
in Bristol the previous September...
Friends, Associates
Mary Palmer
MP
and her husband
entertained her brother Joshua
, sister Frances
, and Samuel Johnson
, sharing the hostess honours for several days with her married sister Elizabeth Johnson, who lived nearby.
Clifford, James L. Dictionary Johnson. McGraw-Hill, 1979.
Boswell's is Johnson's most famous friendship, but his women friends were immensely important to him. Carter and Lennox were joined by Hester Thrale
(though Johnson always reckoned her husband, Henry Thrale
, if anything the...
Friends, Associates
Ellis Cornelia Knight
During her childhood, ECK
associated with a variety of celebrated people through her family connections. Her mother was a close friend of painter and writer Frances Reynolds
(sister to the more famous painter Sir Joshua Reynolds
Leisure and Society
Hannah More
Frances Reynolds
painted a portrait of HM
, now in Bristol Museums and Art Gallery.
Thompson, Henry, 1797 - 1878. The Life of Hannah More. T. Cadell, 1838.
frontispiece
Leisure and Society
Mary Palmer
MP
's painter brother and sister did several portraits of her. Sir Joshua
painted her in 1747 and again some years later; Frances
painted herself and her sisters Mary and Elizabeth as a threesome.
qtd. in
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Frances Reynolds
Literary responses
Margaret Bingham Countess Lucan
When on 25 April 1778 the topic came up among Samuel Johnson
, Frances Reynolds
, and James Boswell
of a lady's verses on Ireland, it must have been a reference to MBCL
's poem...
Reception
Mary Palmer
The original Dictionary of National Biography called MP
's writing as represented in these texts the best piece of literature in the vernacular of Devon.
qtd. in
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
But there is almost a parable of female fame in...
Residence
Charlotte Lennox
All her life CL
moved frequently from one lodging to another (lodging which often consisted of a room in someone else's house). During the productive 1750s she moved house at least nine times, in or...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Ellis Cornelia Knight
ECK
relates her experiences at the English and at various European courts, and includes sketches and anecdotes of famous people she knew, including those of an earlier generation like Samuel Johnson
and Frances Reynolds
...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Laetitia-Matilda Hawkins
This work has been valued chiefly for its anecdotes of Samuel Johnson
and Sir Joshua Reynolds
. LMH
closes the volume on the name of Reynolds
(printed in honorific capitals), in an implicit tribute to...
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Reynolds, Frances. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste. 1785.
Reynolds, Frances. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste. 1789.
Reynolds, Frances. “Introduction”. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of Our Ideas of Beauty, &c, edited by James L. Clifford, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, 1951, p. i - xi.
Reynolds, Frances. “Recollections of Dr. Johnson”. Johnsonian Miscellanies, edited by George Birkbeck Hill and George Birkbeck Hill, Clarendon Press, 1897, pp. 2: 250 - 300.
