Hannah More: The First Victorian
Anne Stott
Abstract
Hannah More was a public figure at a time when the ideology of separate spheres relegated women to the private and the domestic. She was a friend of many notable writers, artists, and intellectuals of the late Georgian period, including David Garrick, Samuel Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Horace Walpole, and the women of the bluestocking circle. Following her religious conversion she became a friend of William Wilberforce and the members of the Evangelical Clapham sect. Her career as playwright, bluestocking, educationalist, anti-slavery campaigner, political writer, and novelist made her one o ... More
Hannah More was a public figure at a time when the ideology of separate spheres relegated women to the private and the domestic. She was a friend of many notable writers, artists, and intellectuals of the late Georgian period, including David Garrick, Samuel Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Horace Walpole, and the women of the bluestocking circle. Following her religious conversion she became a friend of William Wilberforce and the members of the Evangelical Clapham sect. Her career as playwright, bluestocking, educationalist, anti-slavery campaigner, political writer, and novelist made her one of the most influential women of the period. Using previously unpublished sources, in particular her letters, this book shows that Hannah More was a complex and contradictory figure, a conservative who was accused of political and religious subversion, an ostensible anti-feminist who opened up new opportunities for female activism.
Keywords:
Hannah More,
David Garrick,
Samuel Johnson,
Sir Joshua Reynolds,
Horace Walpole,
bluestocking,
conversion,
William Wilberforce,
Clapham sect,
female activism
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2004 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199274888 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2010 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199274888.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Anne Stott, author
Associate Lecturer, Open University, and Sessional Lecturer, Birkbeck College, London
Author Webpage
More
Less
