Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Transcription
- Abbreviations
- 1 Hunting the Methodist Vixen: Methodism and the Eighteenth-Century Media Revolution
- 2 An Overview of Methodist Discourse Culture, 1738–1791
- 3 The Secret Textual History of Pamela, Methodist
- 4 Mary Wollstonecraft, Hester Ann Rogers, and the Textual/Sexual Enthusiasms of Women's Life-Writing
- 5 The Shifting Discourse Culture of Methodism, 1791–1832
- 6 Sally Wesley, the Evangelical Bluestockings, and the Regulation of Enthusiasm
- 7 Agnes Bulmer, Felicia Hemans, and Poetry as Theology
- 8 Evangelicalism, Mediation, and Social Change
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Sally Wesley, the Evangelical Bluestockings, and the Regulation of Enthusiasm
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Transcription
- Abbreviations
- 1 Hunting the Methodist Vixen: Methodism and the Eighteenth-Century Media Revolution
- 2 An Overview of Methodist Discourse Culture, 1738–1791
- 3 The Secret Textual History of Pamela, Methodist
- 4 Mary Wollstonecraft, Hester Ann Rogers, and the Textual/Sexual Enthusiasms of Women's Life-Writing
- 5 The Shifting Discourse Culture of Methodism, 1791–1832
- 6 Sally Wesley, the Evangelical Bluestockings, and the Regulation of Enthusiasm
- 7 Agnes Bulmer, Felicia Hemans, and Poetry as Theology
- 8 Evangelicalism, Mediation, and Social Change
- Bibliography
- Index
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 such as 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, Fanny Burney, Hester Thrale Piozzi, even Wesley's own Aunt Patty Hall – have all begun to receive their due.
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- Eighteenth-Century Women's Writing and the Methodist Media Revolution'Consider the Lord as Ever Present Reader', pp. 176 - 210Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2019