The Literary Manuscripts and Letters of Hannah More

The result of extensive archival research, this meticulously researched book collects and describes for the first time the extant literary manuscripts and letters of the celebrated Bluestocking writer and Evangelical philanthropist Hannah More (1745-1833). Participating in the ongoing recovery of eighteenth-century women writers, Nicholas D. Smith's survey is an indispensable reference work not only for More scholars but for those researching the careers of many of her contemporaries.Features include an extended narrative analysis of the manuscripts that plots More's participation in the manuscript culture of the period and contextualizes the individual entries in the index; details of the substantial holdings in North American repositories; and identification of numerous autographs and transcripts in public and private collections. When known, precise dates of the more than 900 letters in 85 locations in Britain and North America are supplied. More's letters are a largely untapped source of primary materials for scholars and students researching such diverse areas as the literary activities of the Bluestocking circle, women's conduct and education, publishing and the book trade, the national debate over the abolition of slavery, the rise of the Evangelical movement, the conservative reaction to the French and American revolutions, and the Napoleonic wars.