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Literary Salons Across Britain and Ireland in the Long Eighteenth Century Amy Prendergast London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, ISBN: 9781137512703; 250pp.; Price: £55.00 Reviewer: Dr Rachel Wilson Citation: Dr Rachel Wilson, review of Literary Salons Across Britain and Ireland in the Long Eighteenth Century, (review no. 1897) DOI: 10.14296/RiH/2014/1897 Date accessed: 12 August, 2023

following is all quoted material from review:

several distinct types of salon: the Bluestocking model in operation from roughly the 1750s single-author salons of the later 18th century. Bluestockings (a term coined to describe intellectual men and more particularly women) hosted salons which promoted the work of their guests and assisted new authors in attaining recognition. By contrast, Prendergast explains, single-author salons were much more focused on the literary outputs of their hostesses, though they also made time for the work of other published authors (p. 140). Other salons fell into neither category, having no Bluestocking connections, yet a broader reach than single-author gatherings (pp. 66–71).

Prendergast rejects the idea that ‘Scotland and the Scottish Enlightenment were untouched by salon culture’ (p. 46), though she does believe that Scottish salons appeared later than those in England and offered ‘significantly less support for published female authors’ (p. 71).

Elizabeth Vesey and her salons in England and Ireland other women who shuttled between the two countries, such as Anne Dawson, née Fermor and Anne Donnellan the Anglo-Irish Bluestockings, whose bi-nationality was enhanced by their place ‘as “importers” or cultural intermediaries for these exchanges’ (p. 101). Irish salon of Elizabeth Rawdon, the English-born countess of Moira and a woman named by Prendergast as ‘one of the only rivals for the title of Ireland’s most important salon hostess during Vesey’s period of influence’ (pp. 83–4). As well as discussing the countess’s own publications and the help she gave to other female writers, Prendergast also shows the heavy emphasis Moira’s salon placed upon Irish ‘antiquarianism’ (that is the study of ‘the language, customs, and cultures of ancient Ireland’) and ‘associational antiquarianism’ (p. 112).

In chapter five, single-author salons take centre stage as the author shifts the focus to provincial rather than urban salons and once again moves between Ireland and England to look at gatherings hosted by women, including Maria Edgeworth and the less familiar and underappreciated Anna Miller.

The salonnières, it emerges, were hyper-competitive and waspish, catering to an almost exclusively male guest list and enduring an ‘antithetical relationship’ with each other. Their British and Irish neighbours, however, preferred to create ‘a distinctly collaborative network’ and welcomed a gender neutral company (p. 50). This modus operandi remained in force until the early 19th century, when it became more common in newly formed British salons to have ‘a central female hostess surrounded by male participants’ (p. 71). In reflecting further upon who was admitted, Prendergast also argues for a kind of limited meritocracy, if such a phrase can be allowed, which extended across Ireland, Britain and France. Participants were typically drawn from the middling and upper orders, but at the lower end of this spectrum in particular, only those with true ability were welcomed, though some still suffered from feelings of inadequacy when faced with their more famous salon companions (p. 88). For those aspiring writers, male or female, who were fortunate enough to make the cut, salons (barring single-author gatherings) were an invaluable source of patrons and patronesses and a place where unpublished work was circulated, critiqued and edited, thus providing ‘a professional network and ultimately an influential audience’ for such writers (p. 102). For female participants and the hostess, a further benefit was the rare opportunity salons presented for them to engage in ‘associational life’, an idea which is frequently reiterated throughout the book and juxtaposed against the many additional forms of ‘associational’ sociability available to men, such as coffee houses and contemporary clubs and societies (pp. 2–3). Elizabeth Vesey’s home at Lucan House and a fascinating study of the irregular seating plans Vesey employed to keep her gatherings from becoming stale. As a side note, architectural and American history buffs will enjoy learning that Lucan’s oval room was likely the inspiration for the Oval Office in the White House (pp. 81, 87).

male salon hosts: Jacobite 2nd Duke of Ormond, in exile in France from 1715 until his death in 1745 (pp. 28–9), and Dean Patrick Delany, referred to in an endnote for chapter three (p. 195).

Elizabeth Vesey welcomed members of Ireland’s political class into her home. For instance see Susan Schmid, British Literary Salons of the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (London, 2013); Readers, Writers, Salonnières: Female Networks in Europe, 1700–1900, ed. Hillary Brown and Gillian Dow (Oxford, 2011); Amanda Vickery, The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England (London, 2006); Katharine Glover, Elite Women and Polite Society in Eighteenth Century Scotland (Woodbridge, 2011).Back to (1) On political salons, see for instance Women in British Politics, 1760–1860: the Power of the Petticoat, ed. Kathryn Gleadle and Sarah Richardson (London, 2000).Back to (3)

This table lists women playwrights who were active in England and Wales, and the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, before the Victorian era, with a brief indication of productivity or other significant information. The entries may be reordered to browse by name or date. Authors of dramatic works are the focus of this list, though many of these writers worked in more than one genre.

Playwrights

 * Sarah Gardner (née Cheney) (fl. 1763–1795): comedic actor and playwright
 * Maria Geisweiler (fl. 1799–1800): author of dramas, unproduced
 * Mary Goldsmith (fl. 1800–1804): author of two comic pieces
 * Catherine Gore (1799–1861): eleven plays produced
 * Mrs. Green (fl. 1756): author of one play
 * Elizabeth Griffith (c. 1727 – 1793): playwright
 * Elizabeth Gunning (1769–1823): a tragi-comedy, not produced

H

 * Elizabeth Harlow (fl. 1789): bookseller; author of one comedy
 * Elizabeth Harrison (fl.1724–1756): The Death of Socrates in Miscellanies on moral and religious subjects (1756)
 * Margaret Harvey (1768–1858): English poet, scholar, and playwright
 * Eliza Haywood (1693–1756): playwright; wrote primarily in other genres
 * Elizabeth Helme (1743–1814): educational writer who translated two children's plays
 * Felicia Hemans (1793–1835): primarily a poet; some verse drama
 * Philippina Hill (née Burton) (fl. 1768-87): poet and author of one produced play
 * Barbara Hofland (1770–1844): prolific writer who published one volume of dramas for children
 * Frances Holcroft (1780–1844): poet, novelist, translator of plays
 * Margaret Holford (1757–1834): one play produced
 * Margaret Holford (1778–1852): one play, neither published nor produced
 * Rachael Hoper (fl. 1742–1760): three plays produced
 * Mary Hornby (fl. 1819–1820): two plays, not produced
 * Harriet Horncastle Hook (fl. 1784): author of one comic opera
 * Anne Hughes (fl. 1784–1797): novelist and poet who wrote Moral dramas intended for private representation (1790)
 * Elizabeth Edmead Hull (fl. 1786–1832): The Events of the Day (prod. Norwich, 1795)

I

 * Elizabeth Inchbald (1753–1821): playwright
 * Sarah Isdell (fl. 1805–1825): two plays produced but not printed

K

 * Maria Theresa Kemble (1774–1838): actor, singer, dancer, and comic playwright
 * Grace Kennedy (1782–1825): religious writer who wrote one drama, not performed
 * Anne Killigrew (1660–1685): "A Pastoral Dialogue" published in Poems (1686)

L

 * Mary Latter (1725–1777): one tragedy produced
 * Rose D'Aguilar Lawrence (fl. 1799–1836): poet and author of one play, not performed
 * Mary Leadbeater (1758–1826): Irish Quaker author whose work included dramatic dialogues
 * Mary Leapor (1722–1746): English poet who wrote one tragedy, unproduced
 * Alicia Sheridan Le Fanu (1753–1817): Irish author of one comedy
 * Harriet Lee (1757–1851): playwright
 * Sophia Lee (1750–1824): playwright
 * Charlotte Lennox (née Ramsay) (c. 1730 – 1804): Scottish novelist, playwright, and poet
 * Jane Lumley (1537–1578): first translator of Euripides into English

M

 * Elizabeth Macauley (1785?–1837): actor and author
 * Delarivier Manley (1663 or c. 1670–1724): playwright
 * Jean Marishall (Jane Marshall) (fl. 1765–1788): one play
 * Charlotte McCarthy (fl. 1745-68): Irish novelist and religious writer who wrote one dramatic dialogue
 * Catherine Metcalfe (d. 1790): one tragedy
 * Ann Minton (b. 1785): A Wife to be Lett; or, The Miser Cured (1802)
 * Mary Russell Mitford (1787–1855): playwright
 * Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762): prolific writer whose comedy, Simplicity, was not produced
 * Hannah More (1745–1833): playwright; published in many genres
 * Ann Hamilton M'Taggart (1753?–1834): published playwright, none produced

N

 * Charlotte Nooth (fl. 1807–1816): poet who published one play

O

 * Mary O'Brien (fl. 1785–1790): Irish poet and playwright
 * Amelia Opie (1769–1853): English abolitionist and writer, mainly of novels and poetry
 * Olivia Owenson (1785–1845): Irish poet and dramatist
 * Sydney Owenson (1781?–1859): Irish writer known mainly for novels

P

 * Eliza Parsons (1739–1811): prolific Gothic novelist who had one play produced
 * Anne Penny (née Hughes; 1729–1784): Welsh poet and author of one dramatic entertainment
 * Katherine Philips (1631–1664): mainly a poet; author of two plays (one unfinished)
 * Laetitia Pilkington (1709–1750): Anglo-Irish poet who had one play produced
 * Elizabeth Pinchard (née Sibthorpe; fl. 1791–1820): novelist who also wrote dramatic dialogues for young readers
 * Hester Thrale Piozzi (1741–1821): author and patron with two unpublished plays
 * Mary Pix (1666–1709): playwright
 * Francis Plowden (d. 1827): author of one comic opera
 * Annabella Plumptre (1769–1838): collaborated with her sister, Anne Plumptre
 * Anne Plumptre (1760–1818): wrote primarily in other genres; translated dramas
 * Elizabeth Polack (fl. 1830–1838): author of five plays, three surviving
 * Elizabeth Polwheele (c. 1651 – c. 1691): two plays extant
 * Jane Pope (1744–1818): English actor who had one comedy produced in 1767
 * Anna Maria Porter (1778–1832): poet and novelist who se The Fair Fugitives was produced in 1803
 * Jane Porter (1776–1850): two plays
 * Jael Pye (née Mendez) (c. 1737 – 1782): published four works, each in a different genre

R

 * Elizabeth Richardson (d. 1779): author of The double deception; or, lovers perplex'd
 * Sarah Watts Richardson (d. 1824): poet, novelist, playwright
 * Jane Robe (fl. 1723): author of The Fatal Legacy (1723)
 * Rose Roberts (1730–1788): translator, poet, and writer of sermons who wrote at least one drama
 * Fanny Robertson (1765–1855): actor-manager, author of at least two plays
 * Mary Robinson (1757–1800): wrote primarily in other genres; one play produced
 * Anna Ross (b. 1773): performer; wrote comic opera
 * Susanna Rowson (née Haswell) (1762–1824): British-American novelist, poet, playwright
 * Elizabeth Ryves (1750–1797): Irish poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and translator

S

 * Charlotte Elizabeth Sanders (fl. 1787–1803): wrote plays for young readers
 * Elizabeth Satchell (later Kemble; 1763–1841): actor; had one pastoral produced
 * Jane Scott (1779–1839): theatre manager, actor, and prolific playwright
 * Olivia Serres
 * Elizabeth Sheridan (1758–1837): wrote one play, since lost
 * Frances Sheridan (1724–1766): playwright
 * Mrs. C. Short (fl. 1792): Dramas for the Use of Young Ladies (1792)
 * Mary Sidney (1561–1621): translated one play
 * Charlotte Smith (1749–1806): novelist and poet; one comedy attributed to her
 * Mariana Starke (1761/2–1838): author of four plays, not all produced; mainly a travel writer
 * Agnes Stratford (fl. 1794–1795): one tragedy, published but not produced
 * Katherine of Sutton (fl. 1358–1376): abbess who rewrote several mystery plays; considered England's first woman playwright

T

 * Elizabeth Tollet (1694–1754): Susanna; or innocence preserved, in Poems on several occasions (1755; not produced)
 * Sarah Trimmer: prolific educational writer; author of The little hermit; or, the rural adventure (1788; not produced)
 * Catherine Trotter (1679–1749): playwright
 * Margaret Turner (fl. 1790–1810): pastoral

W

 * Eglantine Wallace (née Maxwell; d. 1803): comedies and tragedy
 * Jane West (1758–1852): wrote primarily in other genres
 * Anne Wharton (née Lee; 1659–1685): poet and verse dramatist
 * Elizabeth Whitlock (née Kemble; 1761–1836): known mainly for acting
 * Ann Wilson (fl. 1778–1812): Jephthah's daughter (1783; not produced)
 * Jane Wiseman (fl. c. 1682–1717): author of one produced play
 * Mary Wroth (1587–1652): primarily a poet; one drama extant

Y

 * Ann Yearsley (c. 1753 – 1806): primarily a poet; produced and published one play
 * Elizabeth Yorke (née Lindsay; 1763–1858): playwright