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
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.
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