THE
UNSEX'D FEMALES:
A
POEM,
ADDRESSED TO THE AUTHOR OF
THE PURSUITS OF LITERATURE.
==============================================================
"Our unsex'd female writers now instruct, or confuse, us and
themselves, in the labyrinth of politics, or turn us wild with
Gallic frenzy." -- -- -- -Pursuits of Literature, Edit. 7. p. 238.
===============================================================
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR CADELL AND DAVIES, IN THE STRAND.
-- -- -- -- -- -- 1798.
INTRODUCTION
A prolific writer whose work is now largely forgotten, Richard Polwhele was the author of numerous religious tracts, political satires and essays, topographical and historical studies, poems, translations, and biographical and autobiographical sketches. He was born in Truro, Cornwall, on 6 January 1760 to common but well-to-do parents: his father, Thomas, maintained a small but ancient estate two miles outside of town, and his mother, Mary, kept the house a center of social activity. The poet and satirist John Wolcot (better known by his nom de plume, "Peter Pindar") was an instructor of Polwhele's at school, and a frequent guest at the Polwhele home. Wolcot took an active interest in young Richard's literary aspirations, reading his poems and praising them for their wit, but at the same time adjuring him to refrain from writing in "damned epithets." The two must have had a falling-out at some point; years later, Polwhele would spitefully attack his former mentor in A Sketch of Peter Pindar (1800) (See Appendix I). In addition to Wolcot, Mary Polwhele had other literary friends, two of whom Richard met on a visit to Bath and Bristol in 1777: the historian and radical political pamphleteer Catherine Macaulay, and the poet and playwright Hannah More. Macaulay, "the English Thucydides," was on this occasion being honored with a birthday celebration, featuring elaborate parties, poetry readings, and culminating with the presentation of a sculpture featuring Macaulay as the muse Clio. Richard Polwhele participated in ...
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