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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Though relatively unknown to twentieth-first-century students of literature, Hannah More was one of the most prolific and most read literary and religious figures of her day. Born February 2, 1745, near Bristol, she was educated by her schoolmaster father and began writing poetry and drama at an early age. On a visit to London in the 1770’s, she came to the attention of David Garrick, who introduced her to many of the leading personalities of the day, including Dr. Samuel Johnson. She continued her seasonal visits to London but became increasingly dissatisfied with its worldliness and frivolity. In 1789, at the urging of William Wilberforce, she began a school in Cheddar, one of twelve that eventually dotted the Mendip Hills in the west of England. The primary object of study was the Bible; her primary purpose, to improve the moral conduct of both the children and the adults, most of whom could not even read. She spent the rest of her life writing tracts, pamphlets, and, at least one novel — all of them moral, if not religious, in nature. She died in 1833 in Clifton, then a suburb of Bristol.
1 Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2002.
2 Bridget, Hill, Women Alone: Spinsters in England 1660-1850 (New Haven: Yale UP, 2001), 143Google Scholar.
3 This term refers to a group of Evangelical Anglicans who resided near Clapham Common beginning in the 1790’s. The group included William Wilberforce, Henry Thornton, Edward Eliot, Charles Grant, Thomas Babington, Zachary Macaulay, James Stephen, brother-in-law of Wilberforce, and Lord Teignmouth. Of this group, Wilberforce was More’s closest friend and confidant.
4 Alice, C. C. Gaussen, ed., A Later Pepys: The Correspondence of William Weller Pepys, (London: John Lane, 1904), 2Google Scholar: 301. (All subsequent references to this text will be to this edition.)
5 William, Roberts, ed., Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Mrs. Hannah More, 3rd ed. (London, 1835), 2: 407-408Google Scholar.
6 Bodleian Library, MS. Wilberforce c. 48, fo.3.
7 For a more comprehensive account of the Blagdon Controversy, see Anne, Stott, Hannah More: The First Victorian (Oxford: Oxford VP, 2003), 232-257Google Scholar.
8 Bodleian Library, MS. Wilberforce d. 15/2, fo. 239.
9 Lewis, W. S., ed., Horace Walpole’s Correspondence with Hannah More (New Haven: Yale UP, 1961), 31: 334Google Scholar. (All subsequent references to this text will be to this edition.)
10 Bodleian Library, MS. Wilberforce c.3, fo. 244. I have not been able to trace this text.
11 British Library, MS. Leff. Add. 63090,fos. 164, 165.
12 See his letter of July 19, 1785 in his Correspondence, 31: 233.
13 British Library, MS. Leff. Add 63094,fo. 8.
14 Charles, Howard Ford, Hannah More: A Critical Biography (New York Peter Lang, 1996), 53Google Scholar.
15 As her spiritual adviser, he reassures her: ‘They who think they love him enough, certainly do not love him aright; and a jealousy lest our love should not be cordial, effectual, and entire, is rather a favourable sign than otherwise; and is not peculiar to you, but is experienced at times by all who have spiritual life’ (Roberts, 2: 239).
16 Bodleian Library, MS. Wilberforce d. 15/2,fo. 172.
17 See Bodleian Library, MS. Wilberforce c. 48, fo. 41.
18 Bodleian Library, MS. Wilberforce c. 48, fo. 22.
19 Bodleian Library, MS. Wilberforce d. 14, fos. 48-49.
20 Bodleian Library. MS. Wilberforce c. 3, fo. 32.
21 Bodleian Library, MS. Wilberforce c. 3, fo. 46.
22 Bodleian Library, MS. Wilberforce c. 3, fo. 90.
23 See Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. Lett. d. 124, passim.
24 Arthur, Roberts, ed., Letters of Hannah More to Zachary Macaulay (London, 1860), 180-181Google Scholar.
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