Frances Brooke

Frances Brooke was the eldest daughter of the Rev. Thomas Moore. Orphaned in childhood and raised by relatives in Lincolnshire, she wrote poems and a play in London before her marriage to the Rev. John Brooke (before 1756). In 1757 she sailed for America with her husband, who was military chaplain in Quebec in 1763, the year she published the first Canadian novel. The Brookes returned to London in 1768, where from 1773 to 1778 Frances Brooke was co-manager of the Haymarket Opera House. The year before her death she retired to Sleaford, Lincolnshire to live with her son.

TEXT RECORDS:

1747 ca.Ode to Fame.

PUBLICATIONS:

Virginia a tragedy, with odes, pastorals, and translations. 1756.
The history of Lady Julia Mandeville. 2 vols, 1763.
The history of Emily Montague. 4 vols, 1769.
The excursion. 2 vols, 1777.
The siege of Sinope. A tragedy. 1781.
Rosina. 1783.
The history of Charles Mandeville. A sequel to Lady Julia. 2 vols, 1790.

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

English
American
Anglican

privately educated

woman writer
poet
dramatist
novelist
translator

David Garrick
Samuel Johnson
Hannah More
Anna Seward

REFERENCE:

DNB; not NCBEL.

"Memoir of Mrs. Brooke, the celebrated Writer" Edinburgh Weekly Magazine 58 (13 November 1783) 193-95; Catalogue of five hundred Celebrated Authors (1788); obituary in The Star (31 January 1789); obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 59 (February 1789) 176; "Anecdotes of Mrs. Frances Brooke" European Magazine 15 (February 1789) 99-101; "Sketch of the late Mrs. Brooke" Town and Country Magazine 21 (March 1789) 114-15; "Memoirs of Mrs. Francie Brooke" Walker's Hibernian Magazine (April 1789) 199-200; Lady's Monthly Museum NS 12 (May 1812) 241-43 [portrait]; Biographia Dramatica (1812); Nichols, Literary Anecdotes (1812-15); "Mrs. Frances Brooke" La Belle Assemblee NS 14 (December 1816) 247; "Memoirs of Frances Brooke" Ladies Literary Cabinet [New York] 1 (26 January 1819) 53; Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Alexander Dyce, Specimens of British Poetesses (1827); Frederic Rowton, Female Poets of Great Britain (1853); Sarah Josepha Hale, Woman's Record (1855); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Todd, Dictionary of ... Women Writers 1660-1800 (1987).

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Frances Brooke:

1.	1772  Anonymous, in "Catalogue of the most celebrated Writers" Letters concerning the present State of England (1772) 344-45.
2.	1774  Frances Burney, 1774; The Early Diary of Frances Burney (1889) 1:273.
3.	1781  Hannah More, 1781; Memoirs of Hannah More, ed. W. Roberts (1834) 1:100-01.
4.	1785  Anna Seward to Frances Brooke, 21 April 1785; Letters, ed. Scott (1811) 1:65-66.
5.	1791  Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger, in The Female Geniad; a Poem ... written at the Age of Thirteen (1791) 45.
6.	1827  Alexander Dyce, in Specimens of British Poetesses, selected and chronologically arranged (1827) 212.
7.	1828  Leigh Hunt, in Review of Dyce, Specimens of British Poetesses; The Companion (25 June 1828) 365.
8.	1853  Frederic Rowton, in Female Poets of Great Britain (1853) 155.
9.	1855  Sarah Josepha Hale, Woman's Record; or, Sketches of all Distinguished Women (1852; 1855) 222-23.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Frances Brooke:

1.	1782  Isaac Reed, in Biographia Dramatica; or, A Companion to the Playhouse (1782) 1:47.
2.	1783  Anonymous, "Memoir of Mrs. Brooke, the celebrated Writer" Edinburgh Weekly Magazine 58 (13 November 1783) 193-95.
3.	1788  Anonymous, in Catalogue of five hundred Celebrated Authors (1788).
4.	1789  Anonymous, Obituary in The Star (31 January 1789).
5.	1789  Anonymous, Obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 59 (February 1789) 176.
6.	1812  Stephen Jones, in Biographia Dramatica; or, A Companion to the Playhouse (1812) 1:71-72.