WOMEN, MORALITY AND ADVICE LITERATURE
Manuscripts and Rare Printed Works of Hannah More (1745-1833) and her Circle from the Clark Library, Los Angeles

Part 2: Gift Books, Memoirs, Pamphlets and the Cheap Repository Tracts

Women, Morality and Advice Literature focuses on the life and works of Hannah More (1745-1833), one of the best selling and most influential women authors of her time, in England. Through her writings, philanthropy, political activities, and personal relationships More set out to lead a moral revolution of the nation's manners and principles. Writing in different literary genres and styles her printed works span a period of some five decades. Plays, poetry and prose written in different styles, were aimed at all levels of society - from the aristocracy to the lower class reader.

This major collection of books and autograph letters by Hannah More is held in the Special Collections of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, at the University of California Los Angeles. In recent years, with the benefit of the Ahmanson Foundation, the library has been collecting materials from the later eighteenth century to the early 1800s, and is now recognised by scholars as one of the great centres in the world for seventeenth and eighteenth century studies.

Our Consultant Editors are Professor Patricia Demers, Department of English, University of Alberta, Professor Anne Mellor, Department of English, UCLA, and Janice Devereux from Otago, New Zealand.

'Hannah More's Public Voice in Georgian Britain' by Patricia Demers is a biographical essay introducing Hannah More, her work and times. Anne Mellor concentrates on religion and education, two key aspects of More's life and work, in 'Hannah More, Revolutionary Reformer'. Janice Devereux provides a transcription of More's personal notebook entitled, 'Reminiscencies' (1827) containing anecdotes and table talk with personal friends and acquaintances to Barley Wood, including tales about Johnson, Mrs Garrick and Lord Monboddo.

The ambition of Women, Morality and Advice Literature is to provide scholars with a broad body of materials for studying the work of Hannah More and her circle. It is a major resource to understanding More as playwright, poet, moralist, abolitionist and Evangelical reformer - her thoughts, feelings and emotions. We also offer a selection of material by her contemporaries, revealing current views and ideas on More's outspoken writings, opinions and actions, including her admirers, her critics, her biographers and the Blue Stockings. Among her admirers were Dr Johnson, David Garrick and William Wilberforce, while her critics included Peter Pinder (John Walcot) and Archibald MacSarcasm (William Shaw). William Roberts was the first More biographer. Eminent Blue Stockings include Elizabeth Montagu, Anna Laetitia Barbauld and Elizabeth Carter.

Part 2: Gift Books, Memoirs, Pamphlets and the Cheap Repository Tracts. Part 2 begins with a selection of Gift Books containing collections of writings by Hannah More and others. These include: The Poetical Works of Hannah More, 1835?, and The Amulet; or Christian and Literary Remembrancer, 1828, containing the first publication of two More poems, The Petition of the Negro Boy and The Bazaar.

Hannah More was a popular figure with Victorian biographers. William Roberts was the first More biographer, and he published the Memoirs of the life and correspondence of Hannah More in 1834, just one year after her death. The four volume biography has been criticised by some for heavy editing; with a neglect to chronology, a misdating of letters and the distortion of More's character by the 'bowdlerizing of harmless colloquialisms'. Readers will be able to compare the biography with More's original letters. Other biographers included are Henry Thompson, the resident clergyman at Barley Wood; Arthur Roberts; Thomas Taylor; S G Arnold; Helen C Knight; Anna J Buckland; and Charlotte M Yonge.

More attracted critics as well as admirers. The Blagdon Controversy between More and Thomas Bere concerned the issue of the value of educating the poor, and the question of whether it would lead to the insubordination of the lower classes. The controversy resulted in the publication of numerous pamphlets including the thoughts of William Shaw, Rector of Chelvey and ally of Bere, who wrote The Life of Hannah More. With a critical review of her writings, by the Rev Sir Archibald Mac Sarcasm, Bart.

The bitter dispute between More and her protg Ann Yearsley, known as the 'Bristol Milkwoman' is also covered with Poems on several occasions by Ann Yearsley, 1785. We also include the fourth edition of this work (1876) containing the indignant 'Autobiographical Narrative' of Yearsley attacking More for undue meddling in her life.

The Cheap Repository Tracts were an important and successful part of More's moral and religious campaign 'to improve the habits and raise the principles of the common people.' The tracts promoted a Christian middle-class ideology as normative for all classes of society. The stories and ballads are equally critical of the morally irresponsible aristocracy as of the working classes, with tales of all social types, upright and criminal. Tales included are Two Wealthy Farmers, or the History of Mr Bragwell, The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain and The History of Mary Wood, the Housemaid. Between 1794 and 1797 some one hundred tracts were issued, with a claimed circulation of two million. The tracts were printed bi-monthly in London, Bath, Edinburgh and Dublin, and collections of the tracts later became available in bound volumes, such as Stories for the Middle Ranks of Society, and Tales for the Common People, 1818, and Tales for Young Persons, 1839. We also include the pamphlet by Henry Thornton outlining A plan for establishing by subscription a repository of cheap publications, on religious and moral subjects: which will be sold at a half-penny, or a penny, and a few to exceed two pence each, nd (c1794).

We know that More was also involved in the origin of the cheap repository tract series, and it used to be thought that publications marked 'Z' were the work of More. This has since been disputed, and it is now known that many marked 'Z' were probably not written by More, while some not marked 'Z' probably were. We also know that More helped to correct and revise other tracts. This microfilmed collection will help scholars to investigate these authorship disputes, and to understand the history of this series of publications. Patricia Demers describes this complete series of cheap repository tracts as a 'treasure trove' for scholars.

The manuscript and printed works of Hannah More and her contemporaries covered in this publication will be an invaluable resource for scholars of English, history and women's studies. More's writings, personal relationships, philanthropic schemes, and political actions allow exploration and understanding of the culture of society during the later eighteenth century to the 1800s, including the education of women, Evangelical moral reform, sensibility, the short novel, the Blue Stockings, and abolition of the slave trade.