Queens of the blues
FERN RIDDELL delights in a gleeful survey of the luminaries who led the fight for women’s liberation in Georgian Britain
A remarkable account of the early history of female liberation in Britain, this intricate story weaves together the many luminaries and intellectuals of 18th-century life. We meet Elizabeth Montagu, Hester Thrale, Ann Yearsley and Catherine Macaulay, each a woman whose name should be as well-known as Annie Besant and Mary Wollstonecraft in the ongoing fight for female equality.
Susannah Gibson argues that learned women – the Bluestockings – were a rarity in the 18th century, when female education was restricted to needlework and the marriage market. Yet they burst out of the pages of her book with unmistakable glee. Aided by Gibson’s use of first-hand accounts from the women themselves, their complexity and individuality shine through.
Montagu, the ‘Queen of the Blues’, brings together artists, authors and politicians in salons that thrive on wit and philosophy at her luxurious Mayfair home; while Thrale gives a platform to the then-unknown Fanny Burney after the anonymous publication of Burney’s first novel – as long as her salon’s guests can survive the highwaymen and other criminals on their way to Streatham Park. But London is not the Bluestockings’ only habitat. They are also found in Ireland, Scotland, Bath, Kent and Cornwall, using their words to earn a living and fight back against the patriarchy.
Yet this is no hagiography: Gibson highlights the Bluestockings’ infighting and bigotry. This includes the shockingly patronising treatment of Ann Yearsley, a working-class poetess from Bristol, at the hands of her Bluestocking patron, Hannah More.
With beautifully written prose, Gibson allows the 18th century to be a delicately crafted backdrop to the lives she has chosen to explore. The book led me to discover a new affection for Samuel Johnson, and a loathing for Horace Walpole, as the men of this era grappled jealously with the difficult concept of clever, independent women.
Fern Riddell is the author of Sex: Lessons from History (Hodder, 2021)