Elizabeth Purbeck and Jane Purbeck

Last updated

Anon. [Elizabeth and Jane Purbeck] Raynsford Park, a novel in four volumes. Vol. 1 (London, 1790). Raynsford Park volume 1 by Elizabeth Purbeck and Jane Purbeck.png
Anon. [ Elizabeth and Jane Purbeck ]Raynsford Park, a novel in four volumes. Vol. 1 (London, 1790).

Elizabeth Purbeck and Jane Purbeck were English sisters and co-authors during the Romantic era who published six novels between 1789 and 1802. [1] [2]

Contents

Life

Elizabeth (baptized 1746) and Jane were two of the four daughters of William Purbeck and Elizabeth Kingsman (died 1781); the other two were Sarah (Sally, baptized 1749, died 1821) and Margaretta (Peggy, baptized 1752). William Purbeck was the Mayor of Southampton circa 1763 and the sisters remained in that city after their parents died, [2] [3] although they also lived for a time in Bath. [4] None of the sisters married and they lived together for their entire lives. [2] [4]

Writing

The sisters were involved in literary circles in Southampton and Bath. [3] [5] They knew Sophia Lee, met Hester Thrale Piozzi at Bath, and participated in subscription drives for other writers such as Eliza Parsons. [6] Their first novel, Honoria Sommerville (1789), is a "heroine's progress" [7] which received positive reviews. [8] Their third, William Thornborough, the benevolent Quixote (1791) explores masculine virtue, following Samuel Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison . Again following Richardson, who popularized the epistolary novel, three of the Purbecks' novels are presented in a series of letters: Raynsford Park (1790), Matilda and Elizabeth (1796), and Neville Castle (1802). These three novels received the poorest reviews, perhaps because readers and critics were tired of the epistolary format by the end of the century. [9] In Neville Castle, their final novel, various other contemporary novelists are discussed, and Frances Burney and Sophia Lee are favoured over Richardson and Henry Fielding. [7]

None of the Purbecks' novels were published under their own names; they were either published anonymously, [1] or, latterly, "by the author of ...". The first edition of The history of Sir George Warrington; or the political Quixote (1797), their fifth novel, was wrongly attributed to better-known novelist Charlotte Lennox [1] [10] when it was marketed by their new publisher, John Bell, a "mischievous spirit, the very Puck of booksellers", [11] as the work of "the author of the Female Quixote". [12] Lennox was the author of the popular The Female Quixote ; "the benevolent Quixote" [13] was the actual subtitle of the Purbeck sisters' third novel. The mistake was corrected in a second edition. [14]

The sixth and final Purbeck novel, Neville Castle; or, The Generous Cambrians (London: Plummer; Dutton; Cawthorn, 1802) has been ascribed to Jane Purbeck alone [15] and was possibly published after Elizabeth Purbeck's death, though others have suggested that the novel was written well before its actual publication. [7]

Critical reception

Honoria Sommerville received the most contemporary attention of all the Purbeck novels: it was reviewed in a number of English publications, including Analytical Review , New Annual Register , General Magazine, and The Critical Review . [2] In a positive review of the novel, Town and Country Magazine wrote "If all novels were written with the propriety and knowledge which distinguishes these volumes, circulating libraries would no longer be declared nuisances." [16]

Their other novels, such as Raynsford Park, also received contemporary attention, with reviews in English Review and additional publications. [2] Although one reviewer wrote dismissively that Neville Castle; or, The Generous Cambrians "possess[es] at least the merit of speaking benevolently of the sisterhood of antiquated virgins", [17] it, along with Sir George Warrington, was said to offer a "vibrant philosophical and political treatment" [8] of the revolutionary politics of the time. [7]

In 1822, The Gentleman's Magazine wrote that the novels of Elizabeth and Jane Purbeck were "much read and approved of, being well calculated to inculcate virtuous principles, and to expose vice." [4]

In an essay in the 2023 book Recovering Women's Past: New Epistemologies, New Ventures, María Jesús Lorenzo-Modia states that "The Purbeck sisters are instrumental in the analysis of both gender and political issues in the late eighteenth century." [18] Lorenzo-Modia added that Elizabeth and Jane Purbeck "had a great deal to say on the key gender, political, literary, and philosophical debates that were taking place at the turn of the century". [18]

Works

Bibliography

Etexts

Notes and references

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Lorenzo-Modia 2023, p. 185.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Romantic Women Writers Reviewed, Part 1 by Ann R Hawkins, Taylor & Francis, 2022, page 329.
  3. 1 2 Harris.
  4. 1 2 3 The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle, volume 92, part 1, 1822, page 91.
  5. Butler.
  6. "Eliza Parsons". Orlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present. Accessed 2023-08-07.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Blain et al, p. 879.
  8. 1 2 Lorenzo-Modia, p. 186.
  9. Gibbs, Samantha. "Critical Reception of the Works of Elizabeth & Jane Purbeck".
  10. "Elizabeth Purbeck". Orlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present. Accessed 2023-08-07.
  11. Harrison, Robert (1885). "Bell, John (1745-1831)"  . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography . Vol. 4. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  12. 1 2 Purbeck, Jane, Purbeck, Elizabeth. The history of Sir George Warrington; or the political Quixote. By the author of The female Quixote. In three volumes. The Women's Print History Project, 2019, title ID 2449. Accessed 2023-08-07.
  13. 1 2 Purbeck, Jane, Purbeck, Elizabeth. William Thornborough, the benevolent Quixote. In four volumes. The Women's Print History Project, 2019, title ID 4843. Accessed 2023-08-07.
  14. 1 2 Purbeck, Jane, Purbeck, Elizabeth. The history of Sir George Warrington: or the political Quixote. By the author of The benevolent Quixote. etc. etc. Second edition. In three volumes. The Women's Print History Project, 2019, title ID 8443. Accessed 2023-08-07.
  15. 1 2 Purbeck, Jane. Neville Castle; or, The Generous Cambrians. A Novel, in Four Volumes. By the Author of Raynsford Park. The Women's Print History Project, 2019, title ID 8576. Accessed 2023-08-07.
  16. Encyclopedia of the British Novel by Virginia Brackett and Victoria Gaydosik, Facts on File, 2015.
  17. Review, New Annual Register / JAS, 1802, vol. 23 (1802): 322. (see Corvey Women Writers on the Web)
  18. 1 2 Lorenzo-Modia 2023, p. 202.
  19. Purbeck, Jane, Purbeck, Elizabeth. Honoria Sommerville: a novel. In four volumes. The Women's Print History Project, 2019, title ID 4831. Accessed 2023-08-07.
  20. Purbeck, Jane, Purbeck, Elizabeth. Honoria Sommerville: a novel. The Women's Print History Project, 2019, title ID 8138. Accessed 2023-08-07.
  21. Purbeck, Jane, Purbeck, Elizabeth. Honoria Sommerville: a novel. In four volumes. The Women's Print History Project, 2019, title ID 8137. Accessed 2023-08-07.
  22. Purbeck, Jane, Purbeck, Elizabeth. Raynsford Park, a novel. In four volumes. The Women's Print History Project, 2019, title ID 4835. Accessed 2023-08-07.
  23. Purbeck, Jane, Purbeck, Elizabeth. Matilda and Elizabeth: a novel. By the authors of Honoria Somerville, Rainsford Park, The benevolent Quixote, &c. &c. In four volumes. The Women's Print History Project, 2019, title ID 4872. Accessed 2023-08-07.
  24. Purbeck, Jane, Purbeck, Elizabeth. Matilda and Elizabeth: a novel. By the authors of Honoria Somerville, Rainsford Park, The benevolent Quixote, &c. &c. In two volumes. The Women's Print History Project, 2019, title ID 4861. Accessed 2023-08-07.

Bibliography

Books
  • Lorenzo-Modia, María Jesús (2023). "Women-Authored Collaboration at the Turn of the Eighteenth Century". In Séverine Genieys-Kirk (ed.). Recovering Women's Past: New Epistemologies, New Ventures. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN   978-1496231796.
  • Blain, Virginia, et al., eds. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1990. (Internet Archive)
Journals

Further reading

Related Research Articles

Sarah Green was an Irish-English author, one of the ten most prolific novelists of the first two decades of the nineteenth century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martha Harley</span> British Gothic novelist

Martha Harley was the successful author of six Gothic novels.

Elizabeth Thomas [née Wolferstan] (1771–1855), novelist and poet, is an ambiguous figure. Details of her early life are missing, and her authorship of some of the works attributed to her has been contested due to the use of pseudonyms.

Mary Ann Hanway was an eighteenth-century travel writer and novelist. She has been proposed as the anonymous author of Journey to the Highlands of Scotland (1777).

Maria Susanna Cooper was an English novelist, children's author, and poet, best known for her epistolary novels. Her writing, didactic and conservative, focused on appropriate roles for daughters, wives, and mothers.

Anna Millikin was a teacher and author of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She was one of the earliest Irish women to write Gothic novels and established the literary periodical the Casket or Hesperian Magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Somerville</span> Scottish novelist

Elizabeth Somerville was a Scottish novelist who wrote primarily for children. She was also a school mistress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maria Elizabeth Robinson</span> British writer

Maria Elizabeth Robinson was an author and editor. Her mother was the celebrated writer Mary Robinson, and Maria Elizabeth edited and saw Mary's unpublished works through to publication after her death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Warton (writer)</span> British writer (bap. 1724–1809)

Jane Warton was a British writer. She published poetry, essays, conduct literature, and a novel, and was a member of a literary family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Charlton (writer)</span> British Gothic novelist

Mary Charlton, Gothic novelist and translator, was a "leading light" at the Minerva Press.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Maria Mackenzie</span> British Gothic novelist

Anna Maria Mackenzie was a prolific author of popular novels active during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. She was closely associated with the Minerva Press.

<i>Mothers of the Novel: 100 Good Women Writers Before Jane Austen</i> 1986 feminist literary study

Mothers of the Novel: 100 Good Women Writers Before Jane Austen (1986), by Dale Spender, is a foundational study for the reclamation project central to feminist literary studies in English in the late 1980s and 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medora Gordon Byron</span> British Romantic novelist 1782–1858

Medora Gordon Byron has long been accepted as the pseudonym of "Miss Byron," a Romantic-era author of either five or eight novels, though recent scholarship has complicated that identification.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Hervey (writer)</span> British novelist (1748–1820)

Elizabeth Hervey (1748–1820) was the author of seven novels, six of which were published and one of which exists "in a carefully-bound manuscript."

Mary Julia Young was a prolific novelist, poet, translator, and biographer, active in the Romantic period, who published the bulk of her works with market-driven publishers James Fletcher Hughes and William Lane of the Minerva Press. She is of particular interest as an example of a professional woman writer in "a market of mass novel production."