Their Fathers

1
Their Fathers Libraries Reading and the
Eighteenth-Century Woman Writer
Gillian Dow, Chawton House Library and University
of Southampton
2
George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, 1860

• She understands what ones talking about so as
  never was. And you should hear her read -
  straight off, as if she knowed it all beforehand.
  An allays at her book! But its bad its bad,
  Mr Tulliver added, sadly, checking this blamable
  exultation, a womans no business wi being so
  clever itll turn to trouble, I doubt. But,
  bless you! shell read the books and
  understand em, better nor half the folks as are
  growed up.

3
George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, 1860

• The History of the Devil, by Daniel Defoe
  not quite the right book for a little girl, said
  Mr Riley. How came it among your books,
  Tulliver?
• Why, it's one o the books I bought at
  Partridges sale. They was all bound alike its
  a good binding, you see an I thought theyd be
  all good books. Theres Jeremy Taylors Holy
  Living and Dying among em I read in it often of
  a Sunday and theres a lot more of em,
  sermons mostly, I think but theyve all got the
  same covers, and I thought they were all o one
  sample, as you may say. But it seems one mustnt
  judge by th outside. This is a puzzlin world.

4
Self-educated in their Fathers Libraries

• Mary Hays, Female Biography, 1807
• On Catharine Macaulay
• Her father paid no attention to the
  education of his daughters, who were left to
  the charge of an antiquated, well recommended,
  but ignorant, governess, ill qualified for the
  task she undertook Having found her way into
  her fathers well-furnished library, she became
  her own purveyor, and rioted in intellectual
  luxury. Every hour in the day, which no longer
  hung heavy upon her hands, was now occupied and
  improved.

5
Self-educated in their Fathers Libraries

• Norma Clarke, Queen of the Wits A Life of
  Laetitia Pilkington, 2008
• As well as giving her free access to his own
  library, Dr Van Lewen made sure his clever
  daughter had a plentiful supply of new books
  the best, and politest Authors and took
  pleasure in explaining whatever she could not
  understand. It appears that this was the extent
  of her education. No mention is made of
  schooling, or masters or mistresses.

6
Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote, 1752

• From her earliest Youth she had discovered a
  Fondness for Reading, which extremely delighted
  the Marquis he permitted her therefore the Use
  of his Library, in which, unfortunately for her,
  were great Store of Romances, and, what was still
  more unfortunate, not in the original French, but
  very bad Translations.

7
Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote, 1752

• The deceased Marchioness had purchased these
  Books to soften a Solitude which she found very
  disgreeable and, after her Death, the Marquis
  removed them from her Closet into his Library,
  where Arabella found them.

8
Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote, 1752

• The Impropriety of receiving a Lover of a
  Father's recommending appeared in its strongest
  Light. What Lady in Romance ever married the Man
  that was chose for her? In those Cases the
  Remonstrances of a Parent are called
  Persecutions obstinate Resistance, Constancy and
  Courage and an Aptitude to dislike the Person
  proposed to them, a noble Freedom of Mind which
  disdains to love or hate by the Caprice of others.

9
Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote, 1752

• The Girl is certainly distracted, interrupted
  the Marquis, excessively enraged at the strange
  Speech she had uttered These foolish Books my
  Nephew talks of have turned her Brain! Where are
  they? pursued he, going into her Chamber I'll
  burn all I can lay my Hands upon.

10
Maria Edgeworth, Mademoiselle Panache, 1801

• The carriages drove away, and Mr. Mountague was
  just mounting his horse, when he saw the book,
  which had been pulled out of lady Augusta's
  pocket, and which by mistake was left where it
  had been thrown upon the grass. ?What was his
  astonishment, when, upon opening it, he saw one
  of the very worst books in the French language, a
  book which never could have been found in the
  possession of any woman of delicacy, of decency.
  Her lover stood for some minutes in silent
  amazement, disgust, and we may add, terrour.
• ?
• I can assure you," said her ladyship, I
  don't know what's in this book, I ?never opened
  it, I got it this morning at the circulating
  library at Cheltenham, I put it into my pocket in
  a hurry pray what is it?"
• If you have not opened it," said Mr.
  Mountague, laying his hand upon the book, I may
  hope that you never will, but this is the second
  volume.

11
The Modern Minerva or, the Bats Seminary for
Young Ladies (1810)

• ... the lady grew proud
• Plain Bat was so horridly vulgar, she vowd,
• That the whole clan of vermin and reptiles, by
  dozens,
• Might claim her alliance as hundreth cousins
• So determind the Public in future should see,
• On her cards of admission, Madame Chauvesouris
• As a school must of course rise in merit and
  fame,
• If the Governess boast of a Frenchified name.

12
Susan Ferrier, Marriage, 1818

• Lady Maclaughlans Library
• All the books that should ever have been
  published are here. Heres the Bible, great
  and small, with apocrypha and concordance! Heres
  Floyers Medicina Gerocomica, or, the Galenic Art
  of preserving Old Mens Health - Loves Art of
  Surveying and Measuring Land - Transactions of
  the Highland Society - Glass Cookery -
  Flavels Fountain of Life Opened - Fencing
  Familiarized - Observations on the use of Bath
  Waters - Cure for Soul Sores - De Blondts
  Military Memoirs - MacGhies Book-keeping -
  Mead on Pestilence - Astenthology, or the Art of
  preserving Feeble Life!

13
Susan Ferrier, Marriage, 1818

• Lady Maclaughlans Library
• Lady Juliana turned over a few pages of her own
  book, then begged Henry would exchange with her
  but both were in so different a style from the
  French and German school she had been accustomed
  to, that they were soon relinquished in
  disappointment and disgust.

14
Susan Ferrier, Marriage, 1818

• Lady Juliana on the education of her twin
  Adelaide, who remains with her in England
• As the first step she engaged two governesses,
  French and Italian modern treatises on the
  subject of education were ordered from London,
  looked at, admired, and arranged on gilded
  shelves and sofa tables and could their contents
  have exhaled with the odours of their Russia
  leather bindings, Lady Julianas dressing-room
  would have been what Sir Joshua Reynolds says
  every seminary of learning is an atmosphere of
  floating knowledge.

15
Susan Ferrier, Marriage, 1818

• Lady Julianna on her twin daughter Mary,
  educated by family in Scotland.
• Then what can I do with a girl who has been
  educated in Scotland? She must be vulgar - all
  Scotch women are so. They have red hands and
  rough voices they yawn, and blow their noses,
  and talk, and laugh loud, and do a thousand
  shocking things. Then, to hear the Scotch brogue
  - oh, heavens! I should expire every time she
  opened her mouth!

16
Anxiety of Female Readership

• Jeanne Marie le Prince de Beaumont, Magasin des
  Enfants (1756 contains her version of Beauty and
  the Beast)
• Louise dEpinay, Les Conversations dEmilie,
  (1782)
• Mary Wollstonecraft, The Female Reader or
  Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose and Verse
  Selected from the Best Writers, and Disposed
  under Proper Heads for the Improvement of Young
  Women (1789)
• Catharine Macaulay, Letters on Education (1790)
• Clara Reeve, Plans of Education with Remarks on
  the System of Other Writers (1792)

17
Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis (1746-1830),
portraits in collection at Chawton House Library

18
Adèle et Théodore and Adelaide and Theodore

• Twenty nine editions of French text between 1782
  and 1810.
• English translation 1783 revised edition of the
  translation published in 1784, reprinted in 1788
  and 1796.
• Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Polish and Russian
  translations.

19
Madame de Genlis, Adelaide and Theodore Course
of Reading pursued by Adelaide, from the Ageof
six Years, to Twenty-two

• At fourteen she read Tremblays Instructions
  from a Father to his Children a good book, which
  contains a course of instruction well written
  upon all subjects The History of France, by
  Velly, c, Le Theatre de Boissy le Theatre de
  Marivaux, le Spectacle de la Nature, by Mons.
  Pluche Histoire des Insectes, in two vols. and
  Lady M. W. Montagues sic Letters. Adelaide
  began at this time to read Italian, which she
  already spoke very well, and set out with the
  translation of the Peruvian Letters, and les
  Comedies de Goldoni. she also took extracts of
  what she read.

20
Comments by a British reader, Chawton House
Library copy of Adelaide and Theodore
21
Adelaide and Theodore serialised in The Ladys
Magazine

• May 1785 to April 1789

22
Woodstock Society 1784, copy of Adelaide and
Theodore now in the Bodleian LibraryVet A5 e.
5396


23
Jane Austens Emma The Birth of Miss Weston

• Mrs. Westons friends were all made happy by her
  safety and if the satisfaction of her well-doing
  could be increased to Emma, it was by knowing her
  to be the mother of a little girl no one
  could doubt that a daughter would be most to her
  and it would be quite a pity that any one who so
  well knew how to teach, should not have their
  powers in exercise again.
• She has had the advantage, you know, of
  practising on me, she continued like La
  Baronne dAlmane on La Comtesse dOstalis, in
  Madame de Genlis Adelaide and Theodore, and we
  shall now see her own little Adelaide educated on
  a more perfect plan.

24
Jane Austens Emma 1815 Mr Knightley on Emmas
reading

• Emma has been meaning to read more ever since
  she was twelve years old. I have seen a great
  many lists of her drawing-up at various times of
  books that she meant to read regularly
  through--and very good lists they were--very well
  chosen, and very neatly arranged--sometimes
  alphabetically, and sometimes by some other rule.
  The list she drew up when only fourteen--I
  remember thinking it did her judgment so much
  credit, that I preserved it some time and I dare
  say she may have made out a very good list now.
  But I have done with expecting any course of
  steady reading from Emma.

25
Madame de Genlis, Adelaide and Theodore Course
of Reading pursued by Adelaide, from the Ageof
six Years, to Twenty-two

• At fourteen she read Tremblays Instructions
  from a Father to his Children a good book, which
  contains a course of instruction well written
  upon all subjects The History of France, by
  Velly, c, Le Theatre de Boissy le Theatre de
  Marivaux, le Spectacle de la Nature, by Mons.
  Pluche Histoire des Insectes, in two vols. and
  Lady M. W. Montagues sic Letters. Adelaide
  began at this time to read Italian, which she
  already spoke very well, and set out with the
  translation of the Peruvian Letters, and les
  Comedies de Goldoni. she also took extracts of
  what she read.

26
Madame de Genlis, Memoirs, 1825

• My father had the utmost affection for me but
  he did not interfere with my education in any
  point but one he wished to make me a woman of
  firm mind, and I was born with numberless little
  antipathies I had a horror of all insects,
  particularly of spiders and frogs He would
  frequently oblige me to catch spiders with my
  fingers and to hold toads in my hands. In other
  respects, Mademoiselle de Mars alone had the
  direction of my studies she made me repeat my
  catechism, and gave me daily a lesson of singing,
  and two on the harpsichord At the request of
  Mademoiselle de Mars, my father gave us, out of
  his library, the Clelia of Mademoiselle de
  Scudery, and the Theatre of Mademoiselle Barbier
  these two books were our delight for a long time
  and from thence, at eight years old, I began to
  compose romances and comedies, which I dictated
  to Mademoiselle de Mars, for I did not yet know
  how to form a single letter.

27
George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, 1860

• I dont think I am well, father, said Tom I
  wish youd ask Mr. Stelling not to let me do
  Euclid it brings on the toothache, I think.
• Euclid, my lad,--why, whats that? said Mr.
  Tulliver.
• Oh, I dont know its definitions, and axioms,
  and triangles, and things. Its a book Ive got
  to learn intheres no sense in it.
• Go, go! said Mr. Tulliver, reprovingly you
  mustnt say so. You must learn what your master
  tells you. He knows what its right for you to
  learn.

28
George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss,

• Take back your Corinne said Maggie, drawing a
  book from under her shawl. You were right in
  telling me she would do me no good but you were
  wrong in thinking I should wish to be like her.
  As soon as I came to the blond-haired young
  lady reading in the park, I shut it up, and
  determined to read no further. I foresaw that
  that light-complexioned girl would win away all
  the love from Corinne and make her miserable.
  If you could give me some story, now, where the
  dark woman triumphs, it would restore the
  balance. I want to avenge Rebecca and Flora
  MacIvor and Minna, and all the rest of the dark
  unhappy ones.