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Overview
"I dined yesterday at Mrs Garrick’s with Mrs Carter, Miss Hannah More and Miss Fanny Burney. Three such women are not to found; I know not where I could find a fourth, except Mrs Lennox, who is superiour to them all." --Samuel Johnson
Dr. Johnson enjoyed the company of clever women. Dr. Johnson’s Women explores his relationship with six remarkable and successful female authors, all of whom he knew well: Elizabeth Carter, Hannah More, Charlotte Lennox, Hester Thrale, Fanny Burney and Elizabeth Montagu. It is also an account of the characters and achievements of these women. It is often assumed that women writers in the eighteenth century suffered the same restrictions and obstacles that confronted their Victorian successors. Norma Clarke shows that this was by no means the case. Highlighting the opportunities available to women with talent in the eighteenth century, Dr. Johnson’s Women makes clear just how impressive and varied their achievements were.
Editorials
From the Publisher
"Dr. Johnson's Women represents the best kind of popula history being produced at the moment: scholarly, fluent and supremely human." --Kathryn Hughes, Daily Telegraph
"Dr. Clarke understands the eighteenth century -- she has a nice sense of character. Her book is both shrewd and scholarly." --Adam Sisman, Evening Standard
Choice
"A lively, balanced, and very readable introduction to the intellectual and professional lives of a group of important 18th-century women."Janet Todd
Dr. Johnson's Women is a friendly, sensible, easygoing run through female authors of the mid- and late eighteenth century, with Johnson a useful peg on which to hang collective biography. The book is aimed at a general audience, for women the prefatory statement- that Carter, Montagu and Lenox are not well known- remains true. It does not fulfil its claim of being "an inquiry into the conditions of female courtship", which requires discussion of publishing, printing, patronage, fees and so on, but it does deliver the flavour of the literary milieu and the yearning of women wanting Johnsonian fame but needing always to negotiate their gender.—Times Literary Supplement