Bluestocking Feminism (6 Volume Set: Writings of the Bluestocking Circle, 1738-1790

Feminist scholarship and criticism has retrieved the Bluestocking women from their marginal position in mid- and late-eighteentth-century literature, tracing the wide range of their influence through salons, coteries, epistolary networks, literary patronage and social philanthropy, through to the early decades of the nineteenth century. This work collects the principal writings of these women and their close associates, together with a selection of their letters. In his introduction, Gary Kelly asks who these women were, who their predecessors were, and how their feminism related to eighteenth-century court and gentry culture. Material included ranges from fiction and literary criticism, to practical theology and philosophical essays. Each volume is separately introduced and annotated and all texts are edited and reset. This volume is intended for scholars and students of women's studies and literature, and also for anyone working in the field of social, cultural and religious history of the period.