Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T16:59:04.765Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

6 - Sally Wesley, the Evangelical Bluestockings, and the Regulation of Enthusiasm

Andrew O. Winckles
Affiliation:
Adrian College
Get access

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.

Type
Chapter
Information
Eighteenth-Century Women's Writing and the Methodist Media Revolution
'Consider the Lord as Ever Present Reader'
, pp. 176 - 210
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×