Women Writers: Charlotte Smith

Charlotte Smith

Her Biography

Charlotte was born in London in 1749 to Nicholas and Anna Turner.

Due to the family’s financial difficulties, Charlotte was married when she was sixteen to Benjamin Smith, who worked for the East India Company. She, however, disliked the marriage, and most of her relatives mocked her for her interests in writing and art. The couple had 12 children, but only 6 survived.

Because of his debts, Benjamin and his family were sent to King Bench’s Prison. During this time, she published her first work in 1784, Elegiac Poems, which became highly successful. She implemented the long-untouched sonnet form, and often wrote about melancholy subjects. Her Elegiac Poems were frequently revised over the course of her life.

After leaving her husband, Charlotte began to write novels in order to support her children, publishing her pieces under her own name. Some of her works included, “Emmeline,” “Celestina,” and “The Old Manor House.” Many of her novels contained gothic elements, social/political commentary on the French Revolution, and life experiences. Because public interests declined, however, Charlotte turned to children’s writing; despite this attempt, she fell into financial poverty.

She died in Surrey in 1806 due to a paralyzing arthritis. After her death, several of her poems were published in the collection, Beachy Head and Other Poems. Thomas Gent wrote an elegy of her, claiming she would be remembered for reviving the sonnet. It is also said Charlotte was an influence to Austen, Dickens, Wordsworth, and Coleridge. 

   Web Resources

Ø A Celebration of Women Writers: Charlotte Smith http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/_generate/authors-S.html

Although her primary webpage is not available, the search page provides scans of her published works, as well as links to other sources of information. 

Ø English Poetry 1579-1830, Spenser and the Tradition: Charlotte Smith (1749-1806) http://spenserians.cath.vt.edu/AuthorRecord.php?&action=GET&recordid=33232&page=AuthorRecord

Virginia Tech’s page for Charlotte Smith, displaying the same information as Mary Robinson.

Ø Charlotte Turner Smith, Parts One, Two, and Three posted by PZK12 on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyEh0sHvQ-Y

In an interview, Professor Jacqueline Labbe (writer from the Literary Compass Journal) talks about Charlotte Smith’s life and her works. The video in total is about 20 mins long, providing information not usually found among most websites.

Scholarship

Anderson, John M. “‘Beachy Head’: The Romantic Fragment Poem as Mosaic.” Huntington        Library Quarterly: Studies in English and American History and Literature 63.4 (2000):         547-74. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.  

Blank, Antje. “Things as They Were: The Gothic of Real Life in Charlotte Smith's The          Emigrants and The Banished Man.” Women’s Writing 16.1 (May 2009): 78-93. Web.          22 Sept. 2014.

Conway, Alison. “Nationalism, Revolution, and the Female Body: Charlotte Smith's          Desmond.” Women’s Studies 24.5 (June 1995): 395-410. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Cook, Elizabeth Heckendorn. “Charlotte Smith and ‘The Swallow’: Migration and Romantic          Authorship.” Huntington Library Quarterly: Studies in English and American History and       Literature 72.1 (2009): 48-67. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Craciun, Adriana. “Romantic Satanism and the Rise of Nineteenth-Century Women's    Poetry.” New Literary History: A Journal of Theory and Interpretation 34.4 (Autumn     2003):          699-721. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Dolan, Elizabeth A. “Collaborative Motherhood: Maternal Teachers and Dying Mothers In          Charlotte Smith’s Children’s Books.” Women’s Writing 16.1 (May 2009): 109-25.          Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Fulk, Mark K. “Mismanaging Mothers: Matriarchy and Romantic Education in Charlotte          Smith's The Young Philosopher.” Women’s Writing 16.1 (May 2009): 94-108. Web.  22 Sept. 2014.

Girten, Kristin. “Charlotte Smith's Tactile Poetics.” Eighteenth Century: Theory &        Interpretation    (University of Pennsylvania Press) 54.2 (Summer 2013): 215-30. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Hart, Monica Smith. “Charlotte Smith's Exilic Persona.” Partial Answers: Journal of Literature  and the History of Ideas 8.2 (June 2010): 305-23. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Klekar, Cynthia. “The Obligations of Form: Social Practice in Charlotte Smith's Emmeline.”          Philological Quarterly 86.3 (Summer 2007): 269-89. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Labbe, Jacqueline M. “Metaphoricity and the Romance of Property in The Old Manor House.” Novel: A Form on Fiction 34.2 (Spring 2001): 216-32. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Lokke, Kari. “Charlotte Smith’s Desmond: The Historical Novel As Social Protest.” Women’s        Writing 16.1 (May 2009): 60-77. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Maunu, leanne. “Home Is Where the Heart Is: National Identity and Expatriation in    

Charlotte Smith's The Young Philosopher.” European Romantic Review 15.1 (Mar.       2004):          1-19. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Parks, Simon. “'More Dead than Alive': The Return of Not-Orlando in Charlotte Smith's          The Old Manor House.” European Romantic Review 22.6 (Dec. 2011): 765-84. Web.          22 Sept. 2014.

Pratt, Kathryn. “Charlotte Smith's Melancholia on the Page and Stage.” SEL: Studies in              English Literature 41.3 (Summer 2001): 563-82. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Roberts, Bethan. “Literary Past and Present in Charlotte Smith’s Elegiac Sonnets.” SEL: Studies      in English Literature, 1500-1900 54.3 (Summer 2014): 649-74. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Robinson, Daniel. “Elegiac Sonnets: Charlotte Smith's Formal Paradoxy.” Papers on Language        and Literature 39.2 (Spring 2003): 185-220. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Rowlett, John. “Ornithological Knowledge and Literary Understanding.” New Literary History          30.3 (Summer 1999): 625-48. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.  

Sodeman, Melissa. “Charlotte Smith's Literary Exile.” ELH 76.1 (Spring 2009): 131-52.          Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Stokes, Christopher. “Lorn Subjects: Haunting, Fracture and Ascesis In Charlotte Smith’s          Elegiac Sonnets.” Women’s Writing 16.1 (May 2009): 143-60. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Sussman, Charlotte. “The Art of Oblivion: Charlotte Smith and Helen of Troy.” Studies in        Eighteenth-Century Culture 27 (1998): 131-46. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Taybi, Kandi. “Undermining the Eighteenth-Century Pastoral: Rewriting the Poet's          Relationship to Nature in Charlotte Smith's Poetry.” European Romantic Review 15.1          (Mar. 2004): 1-21. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Wang, Fuson. “Cosmopolitanism and the Radical Politics of Exile in Charlotte Smith's          Desmond.” Eighteenth-Century Fiction 25.1 (2012): 37-59. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Wolfson, Susan J. “Charlotte Smith's ‘Emigrants’: Forging Connections at the Borders of a          Female Tradition.” Huntington Library Quarterly: Studies in English and American History       and Literature 63.4 (2000): 509-46. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Zimmerman, Sarah M. “Varieties of Privacy in Charlotte Smith's Poetry.” European Romantic Review 18.4 (Oct. 2007): 483-502. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Books

·        Found in TWU’s Library (not including her works):

o   Curran, Stuart and Charlotte Smith. The Poems of Charlotte Smith. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Print.

Woman's Collection (PR3688.S4 A6 1993)

o   Hilbish, Florence May Anna. Charlotte Smith, Poet and Novelist. New York: University of Philadelphia, 1941. Print.

General Collection (PR3688.S4 Z7 1941)

o   Stanley, Autumn. Raising More Hell and Fewer Dahlias: The Public Life of Charlotte Smith, 1840-1917. New York: Lehigh University Press, 2009. Print.

Woman's Collection (HQ1413.S63 S73 2009)

·        Found via Amazon and Barnes & Noble:

o   Fletcher, Loraine. Charlotte Smith: A Critical Biography. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. Print.