Subjects
Conduct Literature for Women, Part III, 1720–1770
Editor: Pam Morris
Conduct Literature for Women
978 1 85196 772 8: 234x156mm: £495.00/$840.00
Continuing our successful series Conduct Literature for Women, we move into the eighteenth century. The emphasis begins to shift away from courtly etiquette to a more domestic focus, reflecting the interests of the expanding middling classes of British society.
The new set is a vital resource for students of eighteenth-century culture, women’s writing and history. In addition to conventional conduct books, the advice included in Part III of the series takes the shape of poems, polemics, cookery and midwifery manuals, as well as a number of formats including epistolary purported letters between a mother and her daughter. Contributions are by male and female authors in a wide variety of styles and genres and the series as a whole offers fascinating insights into the vigorous debates, ongoing in the eighteenth century, as to gender relations and the proper role of women.
The Scottish Enlightenment is also represented in the series with substantial extracts from David Fordyce’s Dialogues concerning Education (1745) and the first commercial publication of The Professor’s Daughter (1739) by Alexander Monro, a central figure within the circle that comprised Edinburgh cultural and intellectual society during the main years of the Scottish Enlightenment. This last text is particularly interesting in that it consists of genuine letters from a father to his daughter, delightfully informal in tone, and previously very difficult to access. The text was edited by Dr Peter Monro and privately published in 1996, but only one copy exists in the British Library and another in the National Library for Scotland . It is this recent scholarly version of the letters that is reprinted here along with Dr Peter Monro’s editorial and textual notes.
- None of the texts are available in any other modern edition
- Annotation, introduction and index
- Texts reproduced in digitally enhanced facsimile
Contents
Volume 1
Acknowledgements; General Introduction; Exemplary Women, Ancient and Modern; Note on Copy Texts; anon., Woman Triumphant, or, the Excellency of the Female Sex (1721); [John Essex], The Young Ladies Conduct: or, Rules for Education (1722); anon., Female Piety and Virtue. A Poem (1725); extracts from Jane Sharp, The Compleat Midwife’s Companion (1725); extracts from Elizabrth Nihell, An answer to the Author of the Critical Review ... Upon ... Mrs Nihell's Tretaise on the Art of Midwifery (1760); extracts from E[liza] S[mith], The Compleat Housewife, 2nd ed. (1728); [George Lyttelton], Advice to a Lady (1733); anon., Advice to the Fair: An Epistolary Essay (1738); anon., A Letter to a Lady in Praise of Female Learning (1739); Editorial Notes
Volume 2
Alexander Munro, The Professors’s Daughter. an essay on Female Conduct (1739–45); anon., Woman not Inferior to Man (1739); anon., Man Superior to Woman (1739); Wetenhall Wilkes, A Letter of Genteel and Moral Advice to a Young Lady (1741); Editorial Notes
Volume 3
anon., The Lady’s Preceptor, Or, a Letter to a Lady of Distinction upon Politeness (1743); extracts from [Edward Moore], Fables for the Female Sex (1744); extracts from [David Fordyce], Dialogues Concerning Education (1745); Editorial Notes
Volume 4
anon., The Art of Governing a Wife with Rules for Bachelors (1747); anon., A Letter to a Lady , concerning the Education of Female Youth (1749); Thomas Marriott, Female Conduct: Being an Essay on the Art of Pleasing. To be practised by the Fair Sex before and after Marriage (1759); Editorial Notes
Volume 5
extract from Thomas Marriott, Female Conduct: being an Essay on the Art of Pleasing (1759); Sarah Pennington, An Unfortunate Mother's Advice to her Absent Daughters, 3rd edn (1761); anon., Friendly Advice. To the Fair Sex in particular (1763); Editorial Notes
Volume 6
[Charles Allen], The Polite Lady: or, A Course of Female Education (1760); Benito Jerónimo Feijoo y Montenegro, An Essay on Woman, or, Physiological and Historical Defence of the Fair Sex (1768); Editorial Notes; Index