‘This Lady is Descended from a Good Family’: Women and Biography in British Magazines, 1770–1798

Abstract

Hannah Doherty Hudson asserts that biography is an important, even ubiquitous element of eighteenth-century periodicals, and that it was largely a genre that excluded women because it tended to demand genius, curiosity, and public approbation—qualities difficult for a woman of any reputation to come by. And yet, there were important exceptions, often writers and actresses, which she explores in detail; periodical readers of both sexes were clearly interested in women’s biographies. Key to this argument are two case studies: of the women’s biographies featured by the European Magazine (1782–1826) in the post-Lady’s Monthly Museum (1798–1828) era, and of the magazine biographies of Elizabeth Inchbald. Ultimately, contends Hudson, magazine interludes with women’s biography helped re-shape the reception of the biographical genre writ large.