![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
The eighteenth century was characterised by a ferment of ideas and activities which have usually been portrayed as masculine. It is now increasingly perceived that such developments travelled further through society than hitherto generally recognised. Even women participated in ‘enlightened living’, despite gendered limitations on education, travel and work. In various ways women took advantage of the emphasis on the social arts in which they could excel and the increasing number of ways of learning about arts, science and culture. Some even became leaders in ‘enlightened’ ventures from which, ostensibly, women were mostly excluded. Drawing heavily on the letters and published works of a number of women, this article will explore how some women not only managed participate in the travel of ideas in England from c.1750 to1800, but also disseminated them or even contributed ideas of their own.
Notes
1 Roy Porter, The Creation of the Modern World: The Untold Story of the British Enlightenment (New York and London: W.W. Norton, 2000), 3, passim; Sarah Knott and Barbara Taylor, eds., Women, Gender and the Enlightenment (Basingstoke: Hampshire, 2005), xv–xvii.
2 For example Sandra Harding, Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women’s Lives (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1991); Kathleen Weiler and Sue Middleton eds., Telling Women’s Lives: Narrative Inquiries in the History of Women’s Education (Buckingham UK: Open University Press, 1999); Ruth Watts, Women in Science: a Social and Cultural History (London: Routledge, 2007), 6–9, 14–15.
3 Many reprinted since the mid‐1990s.
4 John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (London: HarperCollins, 1997), xv–xxix, 10–55, 92–3, passim; Porter, Modern World, 36–40, 72–95, 142–8.
5 Norma Clarke, Dr Johnson’s Women (London: Pimlico, 2005, 1st ed. 2000), 129–31, 134–6.
6 Thomas Gisborne, An Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex (London: William Pickering 1996, 1st ed. 1797), 20–31, 99–109, 212–19, 230–2, passim.
7 Sylvia Harestark Myers, The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship and the Life of the Mind in Eighteenth Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1990), 3–5, 132; Isobel Grundy, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), passim.
8 Michèle Cohen, ‘The Grand Tour: constructing the English gentleman in eighteenth‐century France’, History of Education, 21, no. 3 (1992): 241–57.
9 Mary Berry, A Comparative View of the Social Life of England and France from the Restoration of Charles the Second to the French Revolution (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green, 1828), 442; Social Life in England and France from the French Revolution in 1789 to that of July 1830 (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green, 1831), 11–14, 39–42.
10 Charles Burney, Music, Men and Manners in France and Italy, transcribed and ed. H. Edmund Poole (London: Folio Society, 1969), passim.
11 Brewer, Pleasures of Imagination, 201–2.
12 Brian Dolan, Ladies of the Grand Tour (London: HarperCollins, 2001), 5–22, 94–5, 96–161, 187–94, 243–88.
13 Berry, Comparative View, 173–5, 191, 339–40, 353–4, 399–402, passim.
14 Franklin, ‘Piozzi’, 3–6; Dolan, Ladies … Grand Tour, 279–87.
15 Dolan, Ladies … Grand Tour, 51–4.
16 Porter, Modern World, 79–80, 194–7.
17 The eight bound volumes of the latter had 11 editions by 1729.
18 Brewer, Pleasures of Imagination, 130–97.
19 Patricia Fara, ‘The appliance of science: the Georgian British Museum’, History Today, 47, no. 8 (1997): 39–45; Kim Sloan, Enlightenment: Discovering the World in the Eighteenth Century (London: British Museum, 2003), passim.
20 Berry, Social Life, 40–6; Marilyn Butler, Maria Edgeworth A Literary Biography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 66; Elizabeth Eger, ed., Elizabeth Montagu (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1999), 152.
21 Peter Thomson, ‘Garrick, David (1717–1779)’, ODNB, online ed., May 2006, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/10408 (accessed March 5, 2007), 6, 13, passim; Brewer, Pleasures of Imagination, 56–74, 225–6, 328–61, 362–448, 632–61; Myers, Bluestocking Circle, 177–85.
22 Dolan, Ladies … Grand Tour, 194–200.
23 Myers, Bluestocking Circle, 21–44, 267–8; Erasmus Darwin, The Botanic Garden (London: Joseph Johnson, 1795), canto 1, 27–8, 84–90, note 53–9.
24 Barbara Brandon Schnorrenberg, ‘Montagu, Elizabeth (1718–1800)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), http://www.oxfoddnb.com/view/article/19014 (accessed March 5, 2007), 6–7; Elizabeth Eger, ‘Luxury, industry and charity: bluestocking culture displayed’. in Luxury in the Eighteenth Century: Debates, Desires and Delectable Goods, ed. Maxine Berg and Elizabeth Eger (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 190–204.
25 Gary Kelly, ‘General Introduction’ in Bluestocking Feminism: Writings of the Bluestocking Circle 1738–1785, Vol. 1 Elizabeth Montagu, ed. Elizabeth Eger (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1999), xviii–xix, xxvii–xlv; Brewer, Pleasures of Imagination, xix, 88–93, 98–107, 256–7; Porter, Modern World, 194–7.
26 Schnorrenberg, ‘Montagu’, 3: ix, xi–xv, lvi; Myers, Bluestocking Circle 1–20.
27 Elizabeth Eger, ‘“The noblest commerce of mankind”: conversation and community in the bluestocking circle’, in Women, Gender and the Enlightenment, ed. Sarah Knott and Barbara Taylor (Basingstoke: Hampshire, 2005), 288–305; Judith Hawley, ed., Writings of the Bluestocking Circle 1738–85 Vol. 2 Elizabeth Carter (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1999), 386.
28 Hester Chapone, Letters on the Improvement of the Mind 1793 (London: William Pickering, 1996), 174–5, 187–251.
29 Rhoda Zuk, ‘Chapone, Hester (1727–1801)’, ODNB, 2004, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/5128 (accessed March 5, 2007), 1–2.
30 Michèle Cohen, ‘“To think, to compare, to combine, to methodise”: Girls’ education in Enlightenment Britain’, in Women, Gender and Enlightenment, ed. Knott and Taylor, 224–42.
31 Burney, Music, Men and Manners, xxi–xxii.
32 Eger, ‘Introduction’, lix–lxi; Montagu, 142; Hawley, Carter, ‘Letters’ 375–7, 379–406; Myers, Bluestocking Circle, 31–2, 57, 65–70, 79–81, 100, 142, 147–8, 185, 196–9, passim.
33 Kelly, ‘General introduction’, xv–xviii; Hawley, Carter, 339, 381–2, 399–402; Jenny Uglow, Dr Johnson, His Club and Other Friends (London: National Portrait Gallery Publications, 1998), 13, 23–5; Marilyn Butler, ‘Austen, Jane (1775–1817)’, (ODNB), online edn, May 2006, http://oxforddnb.com/view/article/904 (accessed March 21, 2007).
34 Dolan, Ladies … Grand Tour, 50–1.
35 Myers, Bluestocking Circle, 122–5, 134–9; Brewer, Pleasures of Imagination, 93–4, 101–7.
36 Eger, Montagu, ‘Letters’, 176.
37 Eger, Montagu, 157–61, 162, 166, 196; Clarke, Johnson’s Women, 55, 116–18; Michael J. Franklin, ‘Piozzi, Hester Lynch (1741–1821)’, ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com/article/22309 (accessed March 5, 2007), 1, 2, 6; Myers, Bluestocking Circle, 52, 66, 159–68, 185, 191, 195, 197, 233.
38 Chapone, Letters, 187–9, 195–6.
39 Brewer, Pleasures of Imagination, 58, 84.
40 Joanna Martin, A Governess in the Age of Jane Austen (London: Hambledon Press, 1998), passim.
41 Eger, Montagu, 152.
42 Clarke, Johnson’s Women, 51.
43 Hawley, Carter, ‘Letters’, 379–80; Patricia Phillips, The Scientific Lady. A Social History of Women’s Scientific Interests 1520–1918 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1990), 92–8.
44 Watts, Women in Science, 61–9, 82; Ruth Hayden, Mrs Delany: Her Life and Flowers (London: British Museum Press, 2000, 1st ed. 1980), 131–60.
45 Eger, Montagu, 143–4.
46 Deidre Raftery, Women and learning in English Writing 1600–1900 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1997), 100–10.
47 Zuk, ‘Chapone’, 2–3.
48 Eger, Montagu, 125–31; ‘Conversation and community’, 300–1; Plutarch was an author also promoted by Macaulay: Catherine Macaulay, Letters on Education 1790, ed. Janet Todd (London: William Pickering, 1996), 126–8.
49 John Aikin and Anna Barbauld, Evenings at Home (Edinburgh: William P. Nimmo, 1868, 1st ed. 1793), 16–21, 43–4, 61, 97–116.
50 Janet Todd, ‘Forward’ in Chapone, Letters; Myers, Bluestocking Circle, 140–8.
51 Clarke, Johnson’s Women, passim; Pat Rogers, ‘Burney, Frances (1752–1840)’ ODNB, 2004, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/603 (accessed March 5, 2007), 6; Myers, Bluestocking Circle, 51, 157–9.
52 Hester Lynch Piozzi, Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson, ed. S.C. Roberts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932), passim; R. Brimley Johnson, ed., The Letters of Mrs Thrale (London: John Lane at the Bodley Head, 1926), 17–83; Nigel Wood, ed., Dr Johnson & Fanny Burney: Extracts from Fanny Burney’s Prose 1777–84 (Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 1989), 7, 35–6, 38–40, 76, 82–7, 89, passim; Franklin, Piozzi, 2.
53 Eger, ‘Introduction’, lvii, lxii–lxv; Montagu, ‘Dialogues of the Dead’, 115–37, 217 ftn.19; Myers, Bluestocking Circle, 223, 249, 257–67, passim; Carter, xxxi; Clarke, Johnson’s Women, 202, 227–9.
54 Piozzi, Johnson, passim; Franklin, Piozzi, 5–6.
55 Dolan, Ladies .. Grand Tour, 273–4.
56 Hawley, Carter, 335.
57 Zuk, ‘Chapone’, 1.
58 Clarke, Johnson’s Women, 224–5; Myers, Bluestocking Circle, 27.
59 Hawley, Carter, 2–6, 9–29, 232, 248. 35–333, 390–1; see also 353–4, 445 fn 20–5.
60 Ibid., 337, 395, 399, 401–3, passim.
61 Eger, ‘Introduction’, lxv–lxxii; Montagu, ‘Essay’, 6–113; ‘Letters’, 161–6, 170, 173–4, 182–7, 195–8.
62 Clarke, Johnson’s Women, ix, 67–8, 90–107–11, 126.
63 Rogers, ‘Burney, Frances’, 11, passim; Cheryl Turner, Living by the Pen: Women Writers in the Eighteenth Century (London: Routledge, 1994), 6, 79, passim; Butler, Maria Edgeworth, 1.
64 Hannah More, Selected Writings of …, ed. Robert Hole (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1996), passim; Susan Skedd, ‘More, Hannah (1745–1833)’, ODNB; online ed., May 2006 http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/19179 (accessed March 5, 2007).
65 Lucy Aikin, ed., The Works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld 2 vols (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1825), I, 1–22, 35–8, 55–8, 168–84, 192–5.
66 Brewer, Pleasures of Imagination, 536–72.
67 Wendy Wassyng Roworth, ‘Kauffmann, (Anna Maria) Angelica Catharina 1741–1807)’, ODNB; online ed., May 2006, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/15188 (accessed February 13, 2007); Jonathan Jones, ‘Kauffmann’s Bacchante (Self‐Portrait?), before 1786’, Guardian Review, 13 July 2002; Brewer, Pleasure of Imagination, 229–51, 281, 292–4.
68 Karen O’Brien, ‘Catherine Macaulay’s Histories of England: a female perspective on the history of liberty’ and Sarah Hutton, ‘Liberty, equality and god: the religious roots of Catherine Macaulay’s feminism’, in Women, Gender and Enlightenment, Knott and Taylor, 523–50; Bridget Hill, The Republican Virago: the Life and Times of Catherine Macaulay, Historian (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), 130–9, 241–51.
69 Hawley, Carter, ix–x, 1, 339, 415–21; Rhoda Zuk, ‘Talbot, Catherine (1721–170), ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/26921 (accessed March 5, 2007), 1.
70 Zuk, ‘Chapone’, 1–2
71 Grace Ellis, Memoirs, Letters and a Selection from the Poems and Prose Writings of Anna Laetitia Barbauld, 2 vols (Boston: James R Osgood. 1874), 226–7; Berry, Social Life, I, 46–7.
72 Wood, Fanny Burney’s Prose; Rogers, ‘Burney’, 11, passim.
73 Kelly, ‘General introduction’, xlv–xlviii.
74 Skedd, ‘More’, 3–9.
75 Brewer, Pleasures of Imagination, 70–86; More, Selections, 154–5.
76 Kelly, ‘General introduction’, xlix; Brewer, Pleasures of Imagination, 573–612.
77 Margaret Ashmun, The Singing Swan (New York: Greenwood Press, 1968), 1st ed. 1931: 8–63; Richard Edgeworth and Maria Edgeworth, Memoirs of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, 2 vols (London: Hunter et al., 1821, 1st ed.1820), I, 157–63, 175–81, 231–52, 318.
78 Jenny Uglow, The Lunar Men: the Friends who made the Future (London, Faber & Faber, 2002), passim; Jenny Uglow, ‘Vase mania’, in Luxury, Berg and Eger, 151–62; Ruth Watts, Gender, Power and the Unitarians in England 1760–1860 (London: Longman, 1998), 4–6, 25–9, 40, 65–6.
79 For example: Edgeworth Maria, Memoirs, II, 13, 106–8, 122–4, 156–75; Christina C. Hankin, ed., the Life of Mary Anne Schimmelpennick (Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans and Roberts, 1858, 2nd ed.), passim.
80 For example: Erasmus Darwin, A Plan for the Conduct of Female Education in Boarding Schools (London: Joseph Johnson, 1797); Thomas Day, The History of Sandford and Merton, revised by Cecil Hartley (London: J Stockdale, 1783–9); Joseph Priestley, The Theological and Miscellaneous Works of Joseph Priestley, ed. J.T. Rutt, 25 vols (London, printed for private subscription, 1817–31), XXIII,3–118, 257–482; XXV.
81 Richard and Maria Edgeworth, Memoirs, I, 20, 31, 33 100–3, 268–74; Maria Edgeworth and R.L. Edgeworth, Practical Education, 3 vols (London: Joseph Johnson, 1801, 1st ed. 1798), passim.
82 Rogers, ‘Burney, Frances’, 7; Jill Shefrin, Such Constant Affectionate Care: Lady Charlotte Finch – Royal Governess and the Children of George III (Los Angeles, Cotsen Occasional Press, 2003).
83 Macaulay, Letters on Education, passim.
84 Richard and Maria Edgeworth, Memoirs, II, 164–70; Maria Edgeworth and R.L. Edgeworth, Practical Education, III, 323–57; Butler, Maria Edgeworth, 61.
85 Maria Edgeworth, Memoirs, II, 13 164ff.; Maria and R.L. Edgeworth, Practical Education, v–vii, x–xi; Butler, Maria Edgeworth, 50–4, 71, 90–3, 98, 146–72.
86 Joseph Priestley, ‘Introductory essays to Hartley’s theory of the human mind’ (1790), Works, III, 167–96; David Hartley, Observations on man, 2 vols (New York, 1976, 1st ed. 1749); Watts, Gender, Power, 33–40, passim.
87 Aikin, and Barbauld, Evenings at Home, passim; Anna Barbauld, Hymns in Prose for Children (London: John Murray, 1880); Watts, Gender, Power, 43–52.
88 For example Priscilla Wakefield, Mental Improvement or the Beauties and Wonders of Nature and Art 1794–7, ed. Ann B. Shteir (East Lansing, MI: Colleagues, 1995).
89 Jean Jacques Rousseau, Émile, trans. Barbara Foxley (J.M. Dent & Sons, 1974, 1st ed.1762), passim; W. Boyd, ed., The Minor Writings of Jean‐Jacques Rousseau (New York, Columbia University, 1962), passim; Watts, Women in Science, 62–3.
90 Macaulay, Education, Part I, 23–214; Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women (Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1975; 1st publ. 1792), 177–91; Mary and The Wrongs of Women (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980; 1st publ. 1788 & 1798 respectively); More, Selections, 128–31, 134–42, passim.
91 Lucy Aikin, Works … Barbauld, I, 192–5.
92 Daniel E. White, ‘“With Mrs Barbauld it is different”: dissenting heritage and devotional taste’, in Women, Gender … Enlightenment, Knott and Taylor, 475, 488.
93 Lucy Aikin, Works … Barbauld, II, 355–66.
94 Monthly Repository, VII (1812), 597–603.
95 Lucy Aikin, Works …Barbauld, I, 173–9; Carter, 394, 406, 457 fn 64; More, Selections, 36–48. In contrast Johnson was racist about ‘negroes’ in general, but his favourite servant, Francis, was black and educated at his expense – Piozzi, Anecdotes, 100, 136.
96 Wollstonecraft, Vindication; Mary; Wrongs of Women; Watts, Gender, Power, 30–2, 92–4.
97 Dolan, Ladies … Grand Tour, 204–30.
98 Gina Luria Walker, ‘Mary Hays (1759–1843): an enlightened quest’, in Women, Gender and Enlightenment, Knott and Taylor, 493–519; Mary Hays, Emma Courtney (Oxford: Woodstock Books, 1995, 1st ed. 1796).
99 Gerald Tyson, Joseph Johnson: A Liberal Publisher (University of Iowa Press, 1979), 84, passim.
100 Lucy Aikin, Works … Barbauld, v–xv, xxv–xxxviii; Ellis, Barbauld, I, 13–230; Maria and Richard Edgeworth, Practical Education, 81–5, 115–16.
101 Ellis, Barbauld, I, 178–9.
102 Ibid., 226–7.
103 Clarke, Dr Johnson’s Women, 199.