Judith Cowper, daughter of Judge Spencer Cowper, M.P. (and the aunt of William Cowper), married Captain Martin Madan, equerry to Frederick, Prince of Wales. She was acquainted with the Countess of Huntington, John Wesley, and early in life corresponded with Alexander Pope. She has a poem in Dodsley's Collection; her oft-reprinted "Abelard to Eloisa" was first published in William Pattison's Poems in 1728 — the authorship has subsequently been disputed. Her son, Martin Madan, was the author of Thelyphthora, satirized by William Cowper in Antithelyphthora.
TEXT RECORDS:
1721The Progress of Poetry.
1721 ca.To Mr. Pope.
PUBLICATIONS:
Letters of the late Alexander Pope, Esq. to a lady. 1769.
The progress of poetry. 1783.
Letters of Abelard and Heloise ... To which are now added The poems of Eloisa to Abelard, by Mr. Pope. And Abelard to Eloise, by Mrs. Madan. 1773.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Anglican
privately educated
courtier
woman writer
poet
Jane Brereton
William Cowper
John Hughes
Alexander Pope
Rev. John Wesley
REFERENCE:
Not DNB; not NCBEL.
Robert Dodsley, Collection of Poems (1748-58); George Coleman and Bonnell Thornton, Poems by Eminent Ladies (1755); Gentleman's Magazine 51 (December 1781) 594; memoir in Gentleman's Magazine 53 (February 1783) 152; John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the XVIII Century (1812-15); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Alexander Dyce, Specimens of British Poetesses (1827); Frederic Rowton, Female Poets of Great Britain (1853); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); W. P. Courtney, in Dodsley's Collection of Poetry (1910) 80-83; Falconer Madan, The Madan Family (1933); Todd, Dictionary of ... Women Writers 1660-1800 (1987); Lonsdale, Eighteenth-Century Women Poets (1989); Michael F. Suarez, ed., Dodsley, Collection of Poems (1997) 1:139-40.
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Judith Cowper Madan:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Judith Cowper Madan:
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)
1. | 1720 John Hughes: Judith Cowper Madan, "To the Memory of Mr. Hughes" 1720; Hughes, Poetical Works (1735) 1:lxv-lxviii. |
2. | 1721 Joseph Addison: Judith Cowper Madan, in "The Progress of Poetry" 1721; London Magazine (1759) 157. |
3. | 1721 Abraham Cowley: Judith Cowper Madan, in "Progress of Poetry" 1721; London Magazine 28 (1759) 156. |
4. | 1721 Sir John Denham: Judith Cowper Madan, in "The Progress of Poetry" 1721; London Magazine 28 (1759) 156. |
5. | 1721 John Dryden: Judith Cowper Madan, in "The Progress of Poetry" 1721; London Magazine 58 (1759) 156. |
6. | 1721 John Hughes: Judith Cowper Madan, in "Progress of Poetry" (1721); London Magazine 58 (1759) 157. |
7. | 1721 John Milton: Judith Cowper Madan, in "The Progress of Poetry" 1721; London Magazine (1759) 156. |
8. | 1721 Alexander Pope: Judith Cowper Madan, "To Mr. Pope" 1721; Works of the English Poets (1779) 32:xvi-xix. |
9. | 1721 Edmund Waller: Judith Cowper Madan, in "Progress of Poetry" 1721; London Magazine 28 (1759) 156. |