Material Enlightenment: Women Writers and the Science of Mind, 1770-1830

290 Pages·2018·9.361 MB·English

by  Joanna Wharton

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Material Enlightenment
Studies in the Eighteenth Century
ISSN: 2398–9904
This major series from Boydell & Brewer, published in association with the British Society
for Eighteenth Century Studies, aims to bring into fruitful dialogue the different disci-
plines involved in all aspects of the study of the long eighteenth century (c. 1660–1820).
It publishes innovative volumes, singly or co-authored, on any topic in history, science,
music, literature and the visual arts in any area of the world in the long eighteenth cen-
tury and particularly encourages proposals that explore links among the disciplines, and
which aim to develop new cross-disciplinary fields of enquiry.
Series editors: Ros Ballaster, University of Oxford, UK; Matthew Grenby, Newcastle Uni-
versity, UK; Robert D. Hume, Penn State University, USA; Mark Knights, University of
Warwick, UK; Renaud Morieux, University of Cambridge, UK.
Material Enlightenment
Women Writers and the Science of Mind, 1770–1830
Joanna Wharton
THE BOYDELL PRESS
Published in association with
© Joanna Wharton 2018
All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation
no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast,
transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission of the copyright owner
The right of Joanna Wharton to be identified as
the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
First published 2018
The Boydell Press, Woodbridge
ISBN 978 1 78327 295 2
The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.
668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620–2731, USA
website: www.boydellandbrewer.com
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for
external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guaran-
tee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate
This publication is printed on acid-free paper
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To D. M. W.

Contents
List of Illustrations viii
Acknowledgements ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
1 ‘ Things themselves’: Anna Letitia Barbauld’s
Lessons and Hymns 31
2 Honora Edgeworth and the ‘experimental science’
of education 73
3 Profession and occlusion: Hannah More’s
‘vital Christianity’ 113
4 Clearing out the ‘rubbish’: Elizabeth Hamilton’s
domestic philosophy 161
5 ‘The spirit of industry’: Maria Edgeworth’s
object lessons 197
Afterword 231
Bibliography 237
Index 269
Illlustrations
Figure 1. ‘May Foster’s House’. Doll’s house, c. 1800. © Victoria and
Albert Museum, London. 64
Figure 2. Detail of ‘May Foster’s House’. © Victoria and Albert
Museum, London. 64
Figure 3. ‘Honora Edgeworth ob. 1780’. Portrait medallion of Honora
Sneyd Edgeworth, Jasper ware, by Josiah Wedgwood and
Sons, c. 1780. 7 × 5.7 cm.© Victoria and Albert Museum,
London. 82
Figure 4. Serena. Print depicting a young woman, seated and reading
a book by candlelight. Mezzotint by John Raphael Smith
after George Romney, 1782. © Victoria and Albert Museum,
London. 85
Figure 5. Urn to John Locke, Barley Wood, Somerset. 115
Figure 6. The Edgeworth Family by Adam Buck. Chalk, watercolour
and pastel on paper, 1787. Estate of Michael Butler;
photograph © National Portrait Gallery, London. 198
Figure 7. Pencil drawing in ‘On the Education of the Poor’. Page
of a notebook belonging to Maria Edgeworth, c. 1800.
Edgeworth Papers, MS. Eng. misc. e. 1461, fol. 43v,
Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. 215
Figure 8. ‘The Reception of the Diplomatique and his Suite,
at the Court of Pekin’ by James Gillray, published by
Hannah Humphrey. Hand-coloured etching, published
14 September 1792. © National Portrait Gallery, London. 222
The author and publishers are grateful to all the institutions and individuals
listed for permission to reproduce the materials in which they hold copy-
right. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders; apologies
are offered for any omission, and the publishers will be pleased to add any
necessary acknowledgement in subsequent editions.
Acknowledgements
This book is the product of doctoral and postdoctoral research undertaken,
for the most part, at the University of York’s Centre for Eighteenth Century
Studies. I wish to thank all those at the Centre who have provided inspira-
tion, commentary and conviviality over the years. I am especially grateful
to my Ph.D. supervisor, Harriet Guest, for her invaluable guidance and en-
couragement; to Emma Major for her perceptive readings of draft chapters
and for the coffees that buoyed me up in the final months of writing; and
to Jon Mee, for being as generous with knowledge as he is unsparing with
puns. Further sincere thanks to John Barrell, Clare Bond, Mary Fairclough,
Kevin Gilmartin, Mark Jenner, Catriona Kennedy, Jihee Kim, Jane Rendall,
Deborah Russell, Millie Schurch, Brittany Scowcroft and Jim Watt. I also
wish to thank my new colleagues at Lichtenberg-Kolleg, the Göttingen In-
stitute of Advanced Study, where I completed revisions to the manuscript.
This study would not have been possible without the assistance of staff
at William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, The Huntington Library,
Chawton House Library, the Bodleian Library, the National Library of Ire-
land and Dr Williams’s Library. Numerous members of the wider academic
community have generously shared their time and expertise; my particular
thanks to Stephen Bygrave, J. R. R. Christie, Aileen Douglas, Jeremy Davies,
David Higgins, Richard De Ritter, Gillian Russell, Sharon Ruston and Kath-
ryn Sutherland. Susan Manly has been a wonderful correspondent on all
things Edgeworth, and I am grateful for her help and encouragement. I re-
main thankful to William McCarthy for nurturing my interest in Barbauld
in the early days of my Ph.D.
The archival research that went into this book was assisted by a Clark-
Huntington Joint Bibliographical Fellowship, a visiting fellowship at the
Leeds Humanities Research Institute, and a joint award from the British
Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and the Bodleian Library. A visiting
fellowship at Chawton House came at a crucial time; the Library’s collection
of eighteenth-century children’s books and conversation with Grace Harvey,
Mary Ann Myers, Jennifer Louise Mueller and Cliona O’Sullivan equally
helped bring things together. I am extremely grateful to Mari Shullaw at
Boydell & Brewer and the anonymous readers of my Ph.D. thesis and book
manuscript for their helpful suggestions and constructive criticism.