Awards
- Winner of Rose Mary Crawshay Award 2004.
Overview
Hannah More (1745-1833), the daughter of an obscure schoolmaster, began her working life as a teacher at her sisters' school in Bristol. In her thirtieth year she came to London to persuade the actor-manager David Garrick to put on one of her plays. Her subsequent career as playwright, bluestocking, Evangelical reformer, political writer, and novelist turned her into one of the most influential women of her day. Few of either sex could rival the range of her achievements. This book is the first full-length biography of More for fifty years and the first to make extensive use of her unpublished correspondence. The new material shows her to have been a more lively and attractive character than previous stereotypes have suggested. It also reinforces the growing perception that she was a complex and contradictory figure: a conservative who was accused of political and religious subversion, an ostensible antifeminist who opened up new opportunities for female activism. Recent work on the Georgian period indicates that, in spite of their exclusion from formal power, women played a vital role in the ordering of politics and society. The remarkable career of Hannah More adds weight to the argument that women (notwithstanding the repressive rhetoric of the conduct books) were increasingly active outside the allegedly private sphere of the home. More's long life began just before the last Jacobite rising, and ended at the dawn of the railway age. This book argues that she should be viewed as essentially forward-looking. When one of her early biographers dedicated his book to the young Queen Victoria, it was a fitting tribute to More's significance. In her energetic campaigning, her moral fervour, her belief in Britain's providential destiny, Hannah More anticipated many of the characteristics of Victorianism. She was one of the creators of the new age.
Full Product Details
Author: Anne Stott (Associate Lecturer, Open University, and Sessional Lecturer, Birkbeck College, London)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.70cm
, Height: 2.40cm
, Length: 23.40cm
Weight: 0.651kg
ISBN: 9780199274888
ISBN 10: 0199274886
Pages: 420
Publication Date: 16 September 2004
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.
Reviews
Anne Stott's biography manages tp provide a remarkably entertaining and readable account ... packed full of anecdote and fascinating historical insights. Judy Simons, MLR This excellent biography is a study in sexual politics as much as literary history. Peter Ackroyd, The Times Do we need another biography of a long-forgotten woman of moderate talents? The answer is an emphatic yes, and Anne Stott's engaging and highly readable book, Hannah More The First Victorian, aptly demonstrates the reason why. Juliet Barker, Literary Review
This excellent biography is a study in sexual politics as much as literary history. Peter Ackroyd, The Times Do we need another biography of a long-forgotten woman of moderate talents? The answer is an emphatic yes, and Anne Stott's engaging and highly readable book, Hannah More The First Victorian, aptly demonstrates the reason why. Juliet Barker, Literary Review
