Women of Letters, Manuscript Circulation, and Print Afterlives in the Eighteenth Century: Elizabeth Rowe, Catharine Cockburn and Elizabeth Carter ... Romanticism and Cultures of Print)

Using unpublished manuscript writings, this book reinterprets material, social, literary, philosophical and religious contexts of women's letter-writing in the long 18th century. It shows how letter-writing functions as a form of literary manuscript exchange and argues for manuscript circulation as a method of engaging with the republic of letters. Women of Letters, Manuscript Circulation and Print Afterlives in the Eighteenth Century: Elizabeth Rowe, Catharine Cockburn and Elizabeth Carter tells the stories of these women's writing lives: the social and literary contexts which shaped their allegiance to manuscript circulation; the histories of their successful as well as failed forays into print; and their agency and/or diffidence in regards to their public careers. At the same time, the work also broaches larger thematic issues: the degree and significance of women's involvement in the English republic of letters-particularly in relation to their relevance and engagement in contemporary debates within Christianity; the evidence for a more robust climate of manuscript circulation in the long eighteenth century; and reception history-specifically the notion of print afterlives and the critical tradition Front Matter....Pages i-xvii Introduction....Pages 1-17 Letter-writing, Community, and Virtuous Exemplarity: Elizabeth Rowe’s Theatre of Happiness....Pages 18-61 A Saint Everlasting: Elizabeth Rowe and Biographical Exemplarity....Pages 62-91 ‘The new and untrodden path’: Catharine Cockburn, Philosophy, and the Republic of Letters....Pages 92-141 ‘[H]ow Obscure her Lot’: Catharine Cockburn’s Double Afterlife....Pages 142-168 Elizabeth Carter: ‘a very extraordinary Phaenomenon in the Republick of Letters’....Pages 169-212 Elizabeth Carter and the Theatrum Mundi ....Pages 213-238 Back Matter....Pages 239-291 "This gracefully written book is an original and thought-provoking contribution to our understanding of three of the most intelligent of the British Enlightenment women. Bigold's careful treatment of their writings, published and manuscript, and especially her deeply knowledgeable presentation of their engagement with the most important philosophical and literary debates of their times is a major contribution."--Paula R. Backscheider, Philpott-Stevens Eminent Scholar, Auburn University, USA