Fairly common institutionally but rare in commerce: the last copy recorded on Rare Book Hub was in a group lot of titles by Polwhele at Sotheby’s in 1966 and before that at Sotheby’s in 1917. An American edition was published in New York in 1800. A facsimile (with an introduction by Gina Lurie) was published in 1974.
A remarkably savage poem (with highly detailed supplementary notes),“concerning the essential nature and societal role of women” (ODNB) by pitching Mary Wollstonecraft’s supposed radical feminism against the “genius and literary attainments” of Hannah More and her fellow Bluestockings.
Polwhele’s poem takes inspiration from Thomas James Mathias’s poem The Pursuits of Literature (first published 1794) which attacked various contemporary literary figures including (as Polwhele quotes on the title-page of this work):
“Our unsex’d female writers [who] now instruct, or confuse, us and themselves in the labyrinth of politics, or turn us wild with Gallic frenzy…”
Polwhele begins his own tirade by attacking women primarily for their appearance and interest in fashion:
“Survey with me, what ne’er our fathers saw,
A female band despising NATURE’S law,
As ‘proud defiance’ flashes from their arms,
And vengeance smothers all their softer charms.
I shudder at the new unpictur’d scene,
Where unsex’d woman vaunts the imperious mien;
Where girls, affecting to dismiss the heart,
Invoke the Proteus of petrific art;
With equal ease, in body or in mind,
To Gallic freaks or Gallic faith resign’d,
The crane-like neck, as Fashion bids, lay bare,
Or frizzle, bold in front their borrow’d hair;
Scarce by a gossamery film carest,
Sport, in full view, the meretricious breast…“ (p.6-7)
Polwhele next takes aim at the study of botany as he notes that this has recently become a fashionable pursuit for young ladies but he wonders (in one of his many lengthy footnotes), “how the study of the sexual system of plants can accord with female modesty.” (p.8) Polwhele notes that Wollstonecraft argues that botany should be taught to young women (however indelicate the subject) with Polwhere countering, “to such language our botanizing girls are doubtless familiarized: and they are in a fair way of becoming worth disciples of Miss W. If they do not take heed to their ways, they will soon exchange the blush of modesty for the bronze of impudence” (p.9)
Polwhele later exclaims:
“See Wollstonecraft, whom no decorum checks,
Arise, the intrepid champion of her sex;
O’er humbled man assert the sovereign claim,
And slight the timid blush of virgin frame“ (p.13)
The final part of the poem is a summary of female writers, “whose productions have been appreciated by the public as works of learning or genius” (i.e approved by Polwhele). Polwhele complains that women writers were once “a Phenomenon in Literature” (i.e. rare) but now:
“…indeed, our literary women are so numerous, that their judges, waving all complimentary civilities, decide upon their merits with the same rigid impartiality as it seems right to exercise towards the men“ (p.16)
Polwhele celebrates numerous female writers (and expands his opinions on them and their work in his notes) including Charlotte Smith, Mary Robinson, Helen Williams, Ann Yearsley, Fanny Burney, Ann Radcliffe (despite her “necromantic gloom”) and Emma Crewe while also attacking Mary Hays (“a Wollstonecraftian”) who “assum’d a cynic leer” (p.20)
Polwhele’s concludes:
“Miss Hannah More may justly be esteemed, as a character in all points, diametrically opposite to Miss Wollstonecraft; excepting, indeed, her genius and literary attainments…” (p.25-6)
“Although The Unsex’d Females has nothing like the range of Mathias’s much longer work, like his predecessor, Polwhele is advocating an extremely conservative agenda that links domestic and cultural change to political turmoil. Whereas Mathias ranges broadly in cultural politics, religious affairs and revolutionary events both at home and abroad, Polwhele’s much narrower concentration is upon what he sees as “unnatural” female radicals. Though he ranges across much of contemporary women’s writing, it is Mary Wollstonecraft who personifies in Polwhele’s view the modern female radical’s attack on what he describes as “nature”” (Steven E. Jones, British Satire 1785-1840 (2022) p.33)
Gina Lurie’s introduction to the 1974 facsimile of this work noted how, “how the relatively conservative Polwhele creates in it a dispute between Christ and the devil as embodied by the politically diametrical personalities of Hannah More and Mary Wollstonecraft” (ODNB). This reassessment of Polwhele’s work has lead to much more critical study with William Stafford’s English feminists and their opponents in the 1790s : unsex’d and proper females (2010) carefully analysizing Polwhele’s arguments and placing the poem in the political and literary context of the period.
A very fine copy of a rare and important book which powerfully illustrates the late 18th-century divide between the seemingly more conservative Bluestockings and their more radical counterparts. The book is also strikingly prescient today as it explores the place of women in society.
[Bound last in a handsome contemporary with]: POLWHELE (Richard). Grecian Prospects: a Poem. Helston, 1799 and TOWNSEND (Thomas). Poems. London, 1796.
Provenance: Old ink shelfmarks to the front pastedown but otherwise no obvious signs of early provenance. Small book label of Jim Edwards on the front pastedown.
