Marianne Chambers (fl. 1799-1811 or 1812) [1] was an English playwright.
In 1799 she published a novel, He Deceives Himself: A Domestic Tale in three volumes, which was favourably reviewed in The Gentleman's Magazine : "in its perusal we have received more pleasure and real satisfaction than from any work of its kind published for some years past". The author is described as "Daughter of the late Mr Charles Chambers, many Years in the Honorable East India Company's service, and unfortunately lost in the Winterton Indiaman". [2]
She wrote two comedies, The School for Friends (first performed at Drury Lane Theatre on 10 December 1805) and Ourselves (first performed at The Lyceum on 2 March 1811). [3] [4] These were described as "critically acclaimed". [5]
After the production of these two plays she is said to have "disappeared from public notice" and written no more. [5]
Charlotte Smith was an English novelist and poet of the School of Sensibility whose Elegiac Sonnets (1784) contributed to the revival of the form in England. She also helped to set conventions for Gothic fiction and wrote political novels of sensibility. Despite ten novels, four children's books and other works, she saw herself mainly as a poet and expected to be remembered for that.
Anna Seward was an English Romantic poet, often called the Swan of Lichfield. She benefited from her father's progressive views on female education.
Hannah More was an English religious writer, philanthropist, poet, and playwright in the circle of Johnson, Reynolds and Garrick, who wrote on moral and religious subjects. Born in Bristol, she taught at a school her father founded there and began writing plays. She became involved in the London literary elite and a leading Bluestocking member. Her later plays and poetry became more evangelical. She joined a group opposing the slave trade. In the 1790s she wrote Cheap Repository Tracts on moral, religious and political topics, to distribute to the literate poor. Meanwhile, she broadened her links with schools she and her sister Martha had founded in rural Somerset. These curbed their teaching of the poor, allowing limited reading but no writing. More was noted for her political conservatism, being described as an anti-feminist, a "counter-revolutionary", or a conservative feminist.
Mary Robinson was an English actress, poet, dramatist, novelist, and celebrity figure. She lived in England, in the cities of Bristol and London; she also lived in France and Germany for a time. She enjoyed poetry from the age of seven and started working, first as a teacher and then as actress, from the age of 14. She wrote many plays, poems and novels. She was a celebrity, gossiped about in newspapers, famous for her acting and writing. During her lifetime she was known as "the English Sappho". She earned her nickname "Perdita" for her role as Perdita in 1779. She was the first public mistress of King George IV while he was still Prince of Wales.
Elizabeth Carter was an English poet, classicist, writer, translator, and linguist. As one of the Bluestocking Circle that surrounded Elizabeth Montagu, she earned respect for the first English translation of the 2nd-century Discourses of Epictetus. She also published poems and translated from French and Italian, and corresponded profusely. Among her many eminent friends were Elizabeth Montagu, Hannah More, Hester Chapone and other Bluestocking members. Also close friends were Anne Hunter, a poet and socialite, and Mary Delany. She befriended Samuel Johnson, editing some editions of his periodical The Rambler.
Elizabeth Inchbald was an English novelist, actress, dramatist, and translator. Her two novels, A Simple Story and Nature and Art, have received particular critical attention.
Susan Keating Glaspell was an American playwright, novelist, journalist and actress. With her husband George Cram Cook, she founded the Provincetown Players, the first modern American theatre company.
Jane West (1758–1852), was an English novelist who published as Prudentia Homespun and Mrs. West. She also wrote conduct literature, poetry and educational tracts.
Mary Davys (1674?–1732) was an Irish novelist and playwright.
Mary Alcock was an English poet, essayist, and philanthropist. She was part of Lady Anne Miller's literary circle in Bath.
Elizabeth Singer Rowe was an English poet, essayist and fiction writer called "the ornament of her sex and age" and the "Heavenly Singer". She was among 18th-century England's most widely read authors. She wrote mainly religious poetry, but her best-known work, Friendship in Death (1728), is a Jansenist miscellany of imaginary letters from the dead to the living. Despite a posthumous reputation as a pious, bereaved recluse, Rowe corresponded widely and was involved in local concerns at Frome in her native Somerset. She remained popular into the 19th century on both sides of the Atlantic and in translation. Though little read today, scholars have called her stylistically and thematically radical for her time.
Thomas Kibble Hervey was a Scottish-born poet and critic. He rose to be the Editor of the Athenaeum, a leading British literary magazine in the 19th century.
Thomaso, or the Wanderer is mid-seventeenth-century stage play, a two-part comedy written by Thomas Killigrew, The work was composed in Madrid, c. 1654. Thomaso is based on Killigrew's personal experiences as a Royalist exile during the era of the Commonwealth, when he was abroad continuously from 1647 to 1660.
Renée Gertrude Taylor, known professionally as Renée, was a New Zealand feminist writer, playwright, novelist and short story writer. She started writing plays in her 50s, with her first play, Setting the Table, written in 1981, and with her most well-known works being the trilogy of plays beginning with Wednesday to Come (1984). Renée described herself as a "lesbian feminist with socialist working-class ideals", and her plays feature strong female characters who are often working class.
The Maid of the Oaks is a comedy play by the British playwright and soldier General John Burgoyne, known as Gentleman Johnny. It was originally written in celebration of the forthcoming marriage of Edward Smith-Stanley, heir to the earldom of Derby, and Lady Elizabeth (Betty) Hamilton, daughter of the late James Hamilton, 6th Duke Hamilton and Brandon. Burgoyne was the uncle of the groom and in charge of the lavish masquerade and garden fête, which took place at Lord Stanley's hunting lodge, The Oaks near Epsom, Surrey.
William Lax was an English astronomer and mathematician who served as Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry at the University of Cambridge for 41 years.
Mary Darwall, who sometimes wrote as Harriett Airey, was an English poet and playwright. She belonged to the Shenstone Circle of writers gathered round William Shenstone in the English Midlands. She later explored subjects that included the nature of female friendship and the place of women writers.
Walter Sholto Douglas (1790–1830), born under the name Mary Diana Dods, was a Scottish writer of books, stories and other works. Despite being assigned a female identity, Douglas lived as a man in his private, public, and work life. Most of his works appeared under the pseudonym David Lyndsay. His name may have been partly inspired by his grandfather's name, Sholto Douglas, 15th Earl of Morton. He was a close friend and confidant of Mary Shelley, and the husband of Isabella Robinson. In 1980, scholar Betty T. Bennett sensationally outed Douglas, connecting his deadname with his writing pseudonym.
Sir William Dunkin was an Irish barrister and judge in Bengal.