George Anne Bellamy as Self-Fashioned Sentimental Heroine

Abstract

Unlike popular actresses of the period who aligned themselves with virtuous femininity through close association with the socially condoned roles of wife and mother, George Anne Bellamy refused to rely on images of palatable domestic femininity to validate her place in the public sphere. Examining the unique portrayal of Bellamy in the periodical press as neither entirely virtuous nor completely immoral, this article proposes that she used her memoir as a publicity tool to refashion her public image and emphasize the legitimacy of her place in the public sphere on her own terms. Looking particularly at the relationship between her Apology and Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740), it explores the ways in which Bellamy characterized herself as a sentimental heroine. Drawing on the image of the sentimental heroine allowed her to align herself with other, more well-established and generally accepted avenues of female social participation for working women in the public sphere.