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

Hannah More was a highly successful and influential writer.  She wrote prolifically on philanthropy, politics, morals, manners and principals and aimed to revolutionise the behaviour and thinking of the nation.  This project presents a wide range of material relating to More and her circle.  It will allow an understanding of her as a playwright, poet, moralist, abolitionist and evangelical reformer.   Part 2 contains:

• Gift Books containing collections of writings by Hannah More and others - these are a fertile ground for literary research and feature the only appearnce in print of many poems.
• Memoirs of More's life written by William Roberts,  Henry Thompson,  Arthur Roberts, Thomas Taylor, S G Arnold, Helen C Knight, Anna J Buckland and Charlotte M Yonge; and rare printed material relating to the Blagdon Controversy and More's relations with Ann Yearsley, the ‘Bristol Milkwoman’.
• A peerless collection of the Cheap Repository Tracts, both in contemporary, thematic collected editions and as individual broadsheets that were distributed to the poor.  These include tales of stories of colliers, farmers, shepherds, merchants, sailors, barmaids, poachers, philosophers, and fortune tellers, embracing a complete span from the upright to the criminal, and they tell us much about the spread of literacy and popular morality.

Hannah More’s manuscripts will be an important and valuable resource for all researchers in the fields of English, History and Women’s studies.