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2 - Sisters of the Quill: Sally Wesley, the Evangelical Bluestockings, and the Regulation of Enthusiasm

Andrew O. Winckles
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor and Chair of Core (Interdisciplinary Studies) at Adrian College
Andrew O. Winckles
Affiliation:
Adrian College
Angela Rehbein
Affiliation:
West Liberty University
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Summary

In his diary entry for May 27, 1812 Henry Crabb Robinson records the events of a party given at Elizabeth Benger's house in London:

Went to Miss Benger's in the evening, where I found a large party. Had some conversation with Miss Porter. She won upon me greatly. I was introduced to a character, – Miss Wesley, a niece of the celebrated John and the daughter of Samuel [sic] Wesley. She is said to be a devout and most actively benevolent woman. Eccentric in her habits, but most estimable in all the great points of character. A very lively little body, with a round short person, in a constant fidget of good-nature and harmless vanity. She has written novels, which do not sell; and is reported to have said, when she was introduced to Miss Edgeworth, ‘We sisters of the quill ought to know each other’. She said she had friends of all sects in religion, and was glad she had, as she could not possibly become uncharitable

Benger (1775–1827) was a sort of latter day Bluestocking who prided herself on her London coterie of literary figures. She herself was a historian and memoirist, perhaps most famous for her biographies of Ann Boleyn, Mary Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth Stuart and the memoir of her friend, the novelist Elizabeth Hamilton. Benger and Hamilton were both close friends of the Miss Wesley mentioned here. Sarah Wesley (1759–1828), most commonly known as Sally, was the only daughter of Charles Wesley and the niece of John Wesley. While I have not been able to uncover any evidence of Wesley writing, much less publishing, novels, she was a prolific poet and essayist in her own right, well respected in this circle of scholarly and literary women, though very little of her work seems to have found its way to print. Nevertheless, what this passage shows is women like Wesley and Benger at the center of a social, religious, and literary network in the early nineteenth century that has received very little scholarly attention. The Bluestockings of the previous generation – Elizabeth Montagu, Elizabeth Carter, Frances Burney, Hester Thrale Piozzi, even Wesley's own Aunt Patty Hall – have all begun to receive their due. Likewise Romantic-era authors like Maria Edgeworth and Elizabeth Hamilton are well known to scholars today and others like the Porter sisters are just beginning to have their works recovered.

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Women's Literary Networks and Romanticism
“A Tribe of Authoresses”
, pp. 16 - 46
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Print publication year: 2017

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