In the middle of the eighteenth century a number of works published in tribute to gifted women appeared, including John Duncombe’s Feminead (1754), George Colman and Bonnell Thornton’s Poems by eminent ladies (1755), and Thomas Amory’s Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain (1755) and his novel based on the same theme, Life of John Buncle, Esq. (1756). As a friend of both William Duncombe and his son, John, Richardson was probably aware of the Feminead from its inception; and it was doubtless inspired by John Duncombe’s reading the first manuscripts of Sir Charles Grandison as the novel was forming. But Thomas Edwards, who only heard about the Feminead months after its publication, complained that Catherine Talbot was not mentioned as one of the worthies.

Notwithstanding this omission, Duncombe did include five women that Richardson had on his list: Elizabeth Carter, Susanna Highmore (‘Eugenia’), Mary Leapor, Hester Mulso (‘Delia’), and Mehetabel Wesley Wright. But instead of focusing simply on gifted poets, in his letter to Grainger of 8 September 1754 Richardson’s aim was to single out women friends, either living or recently deceased, who were moral exemplars of their sex. Hence he did not think of including Laetitia Pilkington, who appears in such collections as that of Colman and Thornton. The most remarkable omission, however, is Mary Astell, whose fourth edition of Some Reflections upon Marriage (1730) Richardson not only printed but probably edited.