The daughter of a Bristol schoolmaster, Hannah More opened a boarding school in Bristol in 1757, where one of her students was Mary Robinson. She befriended John Langhorne, and later David Garrick, through whom she met many London writers, becoming a well-known author herself. At the suggestion of Bishop Porteus she published Village Politics (1793), the first of a series of tracts written to secure the loyalty of the poor during the French Revolution. More's devotional and moral writings had a wide sale, and after her death her letters were frequently republished.
TEXT RECORDS:
1782Sensibility: a Poetical Epistle to the Hon. Mrs. Boscawen.
1796 ca.Parley, the Porter. An Allegory.
PUBLICATIONS:
A search after happiness: a pastoral drama by a young lady. 1773.
The inflexible captive: a tragedy. 1774.
Sir Eldred of the bower and the Bleeding rock: two legendary tales. 1776.
Esays on various subjects, principally designed for young ladies. 1777.
Ode to Dragon, Mr Garrick's house-dog at Hampton. 1777.
Percy: a tragedy. 1778.
The fatal falsehood: a tragedy. 1779.
Sacred dramas, chiefly intended for young persons; to which is added Sensibility: a poem. 1782.
Florio, a tale for fine gentlemen and fine ladies; and the Bas bleu, or conversation: two poems. 1786.
Slavery: a poem. 1788.
Thoughts on the importance of the manners of the great to general society. 1788.
Bishop Bonner's ghost. 1789.
An estimate of the religion of the fashionable world. 1791.
Remarks on the speech of M. Dupont, made in the National Convention of France, on the subjects of religion and education. 1793.
Village politics, by Will Chip. 1793.
Questions and answers for the Mendip and Sunday schools. 1795.
Cheap repository tracts. 1795-8.
Strictures on the modern system of female education. 2 vols, 1799.
Works. 8 vols, 1801.
Hints towards forming the character of a young princess. 2 vols 1805.
Coelebs in search of a wife. 2 vols 1808.
Practical piety. 2 vols 1811.
Christian morals. 2 vols 1813.
An essay on the character and practical writings of St. Paul. 2 vols 1815.
Poems. 1816, 1829.
Stories for the middle ranks of society, and tales for the common people. 2 vols 1818.
Moral sketches of prevailing opinions and manners. 1819.
The twelfth of August: or the feast of freedom. 1819.
Works. 19 vols, 1818-19.
Bible rhymes on the names of all the books of the old and new testaments. 1821.
The spirit of prayer, selected from published volumes. 1825.
Works. 6 vols, 1833-4.
Memoirs, ed. W. Roberts. 4 vols, 1834.
Works. 8 vols, 1853.
Letters to Zachary Macaulay, containing notices of Lord Macaulay's youth. Ed A. Roberts 1860.
Selected letters, ed. Ed R. B. Johnson. 1925.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Anglican
privately educated
woman writer
schoolmaster
poet
dramatist
essayist
novelist
Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Frances Brooke
Edmund Burke
Richard Owen Cambridge
Elizabeth Carter
Joseph Cottle
Thomas De Quincey
David Garrick
John Hoole
Samuel Johnson
Rev. John Langhorne
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Elizabeth Montagu
David Murray
Bp. Thomas Percy
Rev. Richard Polwhele
Anna Maria Porter
Bp. Beilby Porteus
Joshua Reynolds
Samuel Richardson
Mary Robinson
Elizabeth Smith
Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna
Horace Walpole
Rev. Joseph Warton
Ann Yearsley
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL; DLB.
"Letters by Miss More and Mrs. Cowley" Gentleman's Magazine 49 (August 1779) 407-08; "Memoirs of Miss Hannah More" New Lady's Magazine 1 (October 1786) 462-63 [portrait]; Catalogue of five hundred Celebrated Authors (1788); "Memoirs of Miss Hannah More" New London Magazine 5 (December 1789) 567; Lounger's Common-Place Book (1792; 1796) 2:48-49; "Miss Hannah More" Monthly Mirror 2 (July 1796) 134-35; "Mrs. Hannah More" Ladies' Monthly Museum 1 (July 1798) 1-6 [portrait]; David Rivers, Literary Memoirs of Living Authors (1798); "Hannah More" Weekly Magazine [Philadelphia] 4 (20 April 1799) 54-55 [from Rivers]; "Memoirs of Hannah More" Monthly Magazine and American Review [New York] 3 (December 1800) 465-69; T. Bere, The Controversy between Mrs Hannah More and the Curate of Blagdon (1801); A. Elton, A Letter to the Rev Thomas Bere, occasioned by his Attack on Mrs Hannah More (1801); "Miss Hannah More" Lady's Monitor [New York] 1 (20, 27 February 1802) 210-11, 218-19; "Memoirs of Miss Hannah More" New England Quarterly Magazine [Boston] (April-June 1802) 86-91; "Hannah More" Weekly Visitor or Ladies' Miscellany [New York] 2 (11 February 1804) 131-32; "Remarks on the Writings of Mrs. H. More" Gentleman's Magazine 83 (August 1813) 108-10; "Mrs. Hannah More" Ladies' Monthly Museum S3 2 (August 1815) 61-63 [portrait]; "Mrs. Hannah More" La Belle Assemblee NS 12 (October 1815) 147-49 [portrait]; Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors (1816); "Hannah More" British Lady's Magazine NS 1 (July 1817) 49-52 [portrait]; "Biograhical Sktech of Hannah More" Philadelphia Magazine 1 (January-February 1818) 3-4, 17-18; Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Alexander Dyce, Specimens of British Poetesses (1827); "Works of Hannah More" United States Review and Literary Gazette [Boston] 2 (July 1827) 272-78; The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most Eminent Persons (1832-34); obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 103 (October 1833) 272-75; obituary in American Quarterly Observer [Boston[ 2 (January 1834) 192-93; W. Roberts, Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Mrs Hannah More (1834); Richard Polwhele, in Reminiscences (1836); H. Thompson, Life of Hannah More (1838); Thomas De Quincey, "Literary Reminiscences" (1840; in Works 1889-90); Anne Katherine Elwood, Memoirs of Literary Ladies of England (1843); Joseph Cottle, in Reminiscences (1847); Sarah Josepha Hale, Woman's Record (1855); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); A. Roberts, ed., Mendip Annals, or a Narrative of the Charitable Labours of Hannah More and Martha More (1859); H. C. Knight, Hannah More: or Life in Hall and Cottage (1862); C. M. Yonge, Hannah More (1888); "Marion Harland" (M. V. Hawes), Hannah More (1900); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); Annette M. B. Meakin, Hannah More: a Biographical Study (1911); E. M. Forster, "Mrs Hannah More" Nation [London] (2 January 1926); Luther Weeks Courtney, Hannah More's Interest in Education and Government (1929); Philip Child, "Portrait of a Woman of Affairs — Old Style" University of Toronto Quarterly 3 (1933) 87-102; M. A. Hopkins, Hannah More and her Circle (1946); M. G. Jones, Hannah More (1952); Renwick, OHEL (1963); M. G. Jones, Hannah More (1968); Todd, Dictionary of ... Women Writers 1660-1800 (1987); Lonsdale, Eighteenth-Century Women Poets (1989); Feldman, British Women Poets (1997).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Hannah More:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Hannah More:
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(biography records)
1. | 1785 Ann Yearsley: Hannah More, "Prefatory Letter to Mr. Montagu" in Ann Yearsley, Poems on Several Occasions (1785) iii-xii. |