View source for Anna Laetitia Barbauld

{{Short description|English author (1743–1825)}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2022}}
{{Infobox Writer
| name             = Anna Laetitia Barbauld
| image            = Anna Laetitia Barbauld 1822 engraving.jpg
| birth_name       = Anna Laetitia Aikin
| birth_date       = 20 June 1743
| birth_place      = [[Kibworth|Kibworth-Harcourt, Leicestershire]], England
| death_date       = {{death date and age|1825|3|9|1743|6|20|df=y}}
| death_place      = [[Stoke Newington]], England
| occupation       = {{flatlist|
*Writer
*poet
}}
| period           = 
| subject          = {{flatlist|
*[[reform movement|Reform]]
*[[education]]
*[[Christianity]]
*[[history]]
}}
| spouse           = {{marriage|Rochemont Barbauld|1774|1808|end=his death}}
}}

'''Anna Laetitia Barbauld''' ({{IPAc-en|b|ɑr|ˈ|b|oʊ|l|d}}, by herself possibly {{IPAc-en|b|ɑr|ˈ|b|oʊ}}, as in French, {{nee}} '''Aikin'''; 20 June 1743 – 9 March 1825<ref>{{cite ODNB |id=1324 |title=Barbauld [née Aikin], Anna Letitia [Anna Laetitia] |freearticle=y}}</ref>) was a prominent English poet, essayist, [[literary criticism|literary critic]], editor, and author of [[children's literature]]. A prominent member of the [[Blue Stockings Society]]<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Di Giacomo |first1=P |title="There were banquets and parties every day": the importance of British female circles for the Serbian Enlightenment - A study of Dositej Obradović, Serbia's First Minister of Education (1739/42-1811) |page=13 |url=http://www.knjizenstvo.rs/uploads/files/tekstovi/2016/8.%20PLazarevic.pdf |journal=Књиженство (Knjiženstvo)|volume=6|date=2016|access-date=12 June 2023 |publisher=Università degli Studi “G. d’Annunzio” |quote=[[Dositej Obradović]]...The Unitarian Sarah Meadows Martineau (ca 1725-1800), who sent her children to Anna Laetitia Barbauld’s school in Palgrave, also lived in Norwich. Martineau was a relative of the Taylors, and thanks to her Anna Laetitia Barbauld was able to meet Susannah Taylor...important of these was The [[Blue Stockings Society]], founded in the early...The women that he met within the Scottish community and among the Unitarians such as Mrs Livie and her sister Mrs Taylor, transferred to Obradović the knowledge they had gained from frequenting the feminist circles of '''Elizabeth Carter, Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Elizabeth Montagu, Elizabeth Vessey, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck Sarah Fielding, Hannah More, Clara Reeve, Amelia Opie, Sarah Meadows Martineau.''' Their knowledge of the then current literary and cultural scene enabled Obradović to supply the works that he took from England and translated and adapted for the Serbian nation.}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Miegon |first1=A. |title=Biographical Sketches of Principal Bluestocking Women |journal=Huntington Library Quarterly |date=2002 |volume=65 |issue=1/2 |pages=25–37 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |jstor=3817729 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3817729 |access-date=6 June 2023 |quote=Barbauld, Anna Laetitia (1743-1825) was born Anna Laetitia Aikin...a "provincial Bluestocking"...she was among the second generation of the group...}}</ref> and a "[[Intellectual|woman of letters]]" who published in multiple genres, Barbauld had a successful writing career that spanned more than half a century.

She was a noted teacher at the [[Palgrave Academy]] and an innovative writer of works for children. Her primers provided a model for more than a century. Her essays showed it was possible for a woman to be engaged in the public sphere; other women authors such as [[Elizabeth Benger]] emulated her. Barbauld's literary career spanned numerous periods in British literary history: her work promoted the values of the [[Age of Enlightenment|enlightenment]] and of [[sensibility]], while her poetry made a founding contribution to the development of British [[Romanticism]]. Barbauld was also a literary critic. Her anthology of 18th-century novels helped to establish the canon as it is known today.

The publication of ''[[Eighteen Hundred and Eleven]]'' in 1812, which criticised Britain's participation in the [[Napoleonic Wars]], received negative reviews after which she continued to write poetry but not publish in the public sphere. Barbauld's reputation was further damaged when many of the Romantic poets she had inspired in the heyday of the [[French Revolution]] turned against her in their later, more conservative years. Barbauld was remembered only as a pedantic children's writer in the 19th century, and largely forgotten in the 20th, until the rise of [[feminist literary criticism]] in the 1980s renewed interest in her works and restored her place in literary history.

==Sources==
Much of what is known about Barbauld's life comes from two memoirs, the first published in 1825 and written by her niece, [[Lucy Aikin]], and the second published in 1874, written by her great-niece [[Anna Letitia Le Breton]]. Some letters from Barbauld to others also exist. However, a great many Barbauld family documents were lost in a fire that resulted from the [[The Blitz|London Blitz]] in 1940.<ref>McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'', p. xvi.</ref>

==Early life==
[[File:JohnAikin.jpg|right|thumb|Barbauld and her brother, [[John Aikin]] (shown here in later years), became literary partners.]]
Barbauld was born on 20 June 1743 at [[Kibworth|Kibworth Harcourt]] in Leicestershire to Jane and [[John Aikin (Unitarian)|John Aikin]]. She was named after her maternal grandmother and referred to as "Nancy" (a nickname for Anna). She was baptised by her mother's brother, John Jennings, in [[Huntingdonshire]] two weeks after her birth.<ref>McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'', p. 7.</ref> Barbauld's father was headmaster of the [[Dissenting academies|Dissenting academy]] in Kibworth Harcourt and minister at a nearby [[English Presbyterianism|Presbyterian]] church.

She spent her childhood in what Barbauld scholar William McCarthy describes as "one of the best houses in Kibworth and in the very middle of the village square". She was much in the public eye, as the house was also a boys' school. The family had a comfortable standard of living. McCarthy suggests they may have ranked with large freeholders, well-to-do tradesmen, and manufacturers. At Barbauld's father's death in 1780, his estate was valued at more than £2,500.<ref>McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'', pp. 17–18.</ref>

Barbauld commented to her husband in 1773: "For the early part of my life I conversed little with my own Sex. In the Village where I was, there was none to converse with."<ref>Quoted in McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'', p. 23.</ref> Barbauld was surrounded by boys as a child and adopted their high spirits. Her mother attempted to subdue these, which would have been viewed as unseemly in a woman; according to Lucy Aikin's memoir, what resulted was "a double portion of bashfulness and maidenly reserve" in Barbauld's character.<ref>McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'', pp. 23–24.</ref> Barbauld was uncomfortable with her identity as a woman and believed she had failed to live up to the ideal of womanhood; much of her writing would focus on issues central to women, and her outsider perspective allowed her to question many of the traditional assumptions about femininity being made in the 18th century.<ref>McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'', pp. 28–29.</ref>

Barbauld demanded that her father teach her the [[classics]] and after much pestering, he did.<ref>McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'', p. 32.</ref> She had the opportunity to learn not only Latin and Greek, but French, Italian, and many other subjects generally deemed unnecessary for women at the time. Barbauld's penchant for study worried her mother, who expected her to end up a spinster because of her intellectualism. The two were never so close as Barbauld and her father.<ref>Rodgers, p. 30.</ref> Yet Barbauld's mother was proud of her accomplishments and in later years wrote of her daughter, "I once indeed knew a little girl who was as eager to learn as her instructors could be to teach her, and who at two years old could read sentences and little stories in her wise book, roundly, without spelling; and in half a year more could read as well as most women; but I never knew such another, and I believe never shall".<ref>Quoted in Anna Letitia Le Breton, pp. 23–24.</ref>

[[File:PriestleyLeeds.jpg|left|thumb|alt=Half-length portrait of a man holding a small book in his right hand. He is wearing a dark black jacket and a white shirt.|[[Joseph Priestley]] (c. 1763): "Mrs. Barbauld has told me that it was the perusal of some verses of mine that first induced her to write any thing in verse".<ref>Robert E. Schofield, ''The Enlightenment of Joseph Priestley: A Stud of His Life and Work from 1733 to 1773''. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press (1997), p. 93.</ref>]]

Barbauld's brother, [[John Aikin]], described their father as "the best parent, the wisest counsellor, the most affectionate friend, every thing that could command love and veneration".<ref>Quoted in McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'', p. 30.</ref> Barbauld's father prompted many such tributes, although Lucy Aikin described him as excessively modest and reserved.<ref>McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'', p. 31.</ref> Barbauld developed a strong bond with her only sibling during childhood, standing in as a mother figure to him; they eventually became literary partners. In 1817, [[Joanna Baillie]] commented of their relationship: "How few brothers and sisters have been to one another what they have been through so long a course of years!".<ref>McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'', p. 36.</ref>

In 1758, the family moved to [[Warrington Academy]], halfway between the growing industrial cities of Liverpool and Manchester, where Barbauld's father had been offered a teaching position. Some of the founders of the academy were members of [[Octagon Chapel, Liverpool|Octagon Chapel]], whose creedless and liberal "Liverpool Liturgy" formed a starting point for her beliefs and writings<ref>McCarthy, pp. 152–3.</ref> The Academy drew many luminaries of the day, such as the [[Natural philosophy|natural philosopher]] and [[General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches|Unitarian]] theologian [[Joseph Priestley]], and came to be known as "the Athens of the North" for its stimulating intellectual atmosphere.<ref>Rodgers, p. 38.</ref>

Another instructor may have been the French revolutionary [[Jean-Paul Marat]]. School records suggest he taught French there in the 1770s. He may also have been a suitor to Barbauld – he allegedly wrote to John Aikin declaring his intention to become an English citizen and marry her.<ref>Rodgers, p. 44.</ref> [[Archibald Hamilton Rowan]] also fell in love with Barbauld, describing her later as "possessed of great beauty, distinct traces of which she retained to the latest of her life. Her person was slender, her complexion exquisitely fair with the bloom of perfect health; her features regular and elegant, and her dark blue eyes beamed with the light of wit and fancy."<ref>Quoted in Rodgers, pp. 51–52.</ref>

==First literary successes and marriage==

In 1773, Barbauld brought out her first book of poems, after her friends had praised them and convinced her to publish them.<ref name="multiref1">Rodgers, p. 57.</ref> The collection, entitled simply ''Poems'', went through four editions in a single year and surprised Barbauld by its success.<ref name="multiref1"/> Barbauld became a respected literary figure in England on the reputation of ''Poems'' alone. In the same year, she and her brother, [[John Aikin]], jointly published ''Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose'', which was also well received. The essays in it (most of which were by Barbauld) were favourably compared to those of [[Samuel Johnson]].<ref>Rodgers, pp. 61–62.</ref>

In May 1774, despite some "misgivings", Barbauld married Rochemont Barbauld (1749–1808), the grandson of a French [[Huguenots|Huguenot]] and a former pupil at Warrington. According to Barbauld's niece, [[Lucy Aikin]]:
{{blockquote|[H]er attachment to Mr. Barbauld was the illusion of a romantic fancy – not of a tender heart. Had her true affections been early called forth by a more genial home atmosphere, she would never have allowed herself to be caught by crazy demonstrations of amorous rapture, set off with theatrical French manners, or have conceived of such exaggerated passion as a safe foundation on which to raise the sober structure of domestic happiness. My father ascribed that ill-starred union in great part to the baleful influence of <nowiki>[</nowiki>[[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]]'s<nowiki>]</nowiki> '[[Julie, or the New Heloise|Nouvelle Heloise]]', Mr. B. impersonating St. Preux. [Barbauld] was informed by a true friend that he had experienced one attack of insanity, and was urged to break off the engagement on that account. – "Then", answered she, "if I were now to disappoint him, he would certainly go mad". To this there could be no reply; and with a kind of desperate generosity she rushed upon her melancholy destiny.<ref>Quoted in Le Breton, pp. 42–43.</ref>}}

After the wedding, the couple moved to [[Suffolk]], near where Rochemont had been offered a congregation and a school for boys.<ref>Rodgers, pp. 63–64.</ref> Barbauld took this time and rewrote some of the [[Psalms]], a common pastime in the 18th century, publishing them as ''Devotional Pieces Compiled from the Psalms and the Book of Job''. Attached to this work is her essay "Thoughts on the Devotional Taste, on Sects and on Establishments", which explains her theory of religious feeling and the problems inherent in institutionalising religion.

It seems that Barbauld and her husband were concerned that they would never have a child of their own, and in 1775, after only a year of marriage, Barbauld suggested to her brother that they adopt one of his children:{{blockquote|I am sensible it is not a small thing we ask; nor can it be easy for a parent to part with a child. This I would say, from a number, one may more easily be spared. Though it makes a very material difference in happiness whether a person has children or no children, it makes, I apprehend, little or none whether he has three, or four; five, or six; because four or five are enow {{sic}} to exercise all his whole stock of care and affection. We should gain, but you would not lose.<ref>Quoted in Rodgers, p. 68.</ref>}}

After a time, her brother conceded and the couple adopted [[Charles Rochemont Aikin|Charles]]. Charles studied surgery in Norwich  under the tutelage of [[Martineau family|Philip Meadows Martineau]], the son of  Barbauld's friend [[Martineau family|Sarah Martineau]] whose granddaughter, [[Harriet Martineau]], recalled that as a child, Barbauld, a "comely elderly lady", had visited  the Martineau family home.<ref>{{cite book |last1=McCarthy |first1=W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kTZL66z4CF0C&dq=Charles+Rochemont+Aikin+Martineau&pg=PA396 |title=Anna Letitia Barbauld: Voice of the Enlightenment |date=2008 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |page=396 |isbn=9780801890161 |quote=NB Charles studied under Philip Meadows Martineau, not David Martineau - Sarah's surgeon husband who died in 1768. |access-date=12 June 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Farrant |first1=A. |title=Amelia Opie and the Martineaus |publisher=Martineau Society |url=http://www.ann-farrant.co.uk/martineau-society-conference/ |access-date=12 June 2023 |quote=One of Amelia’s particular friends in the literary world, the essayist and poet Anna Letitia Barbauld, was also known to the Martineaus. In her autobiography, Harriet recalled her as a ‘comely elderly lady’ visiting the household when she was a child.}}</ref>

It was for Charles that Barbauld wrote her most famous books: ''[[Lessons for Children]]'' (1778–79) and ''[[Hymns in Prose for Children]]'' (1781).<ref>McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'', pp. 191.</ref> About ''Hymns in Prose'' she said: "The peculiar design of this publication is, to impress devotional feelings as early as possible on the infant mind". According to Barbauld a child "ought never to remember the time when he [did not feel the full force of God]." Under the influence of [[Joseph Priestley]] she recommended habitual devotion to remind the "child of reason" that nothing happens without God.

==Palgrave Academy==
Barbauld and her husband spent eleven years teaching at [[Palgrave Academy]] in Suffolk which had benefitted from the financial support of  Philip Meadows (1719–83), a solicitor from nearby [[Diss, Norfolk|Diss]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mrs. Barbauld |first1=Anna Letitia |title=The Poems of Anna Letitia Barbauld |date=1994 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |page=279 <!--|access-date=6 June 2023--> |quote=Philip Meadows, solicitor, of Diss (1719–83), was a sponsor of Palgrave School ...}}</ref> Early on, Barbauld was responsible not only for running her own household, but also the school's, to which she served as accountant, maid, and housekeeper.<ref>McCarthy, "Academy",  p. 282.</ref> The school opened with only eight boys, but the number had risen to about forty by the time the Barbaulds left in 1785, which reflects the excellent reputation the school had acquired.<ref>McCarthy, "Academy", pp. 284–85.</ref>

The Barbaulds' educational philosophy attracted [[English Dissenters|Dissenters]] as well as [[Anglicanism|Anglicans]]. Palgrave replaced the strict discipline of traditional schools such as [[Eton College|Eton]], which often used corporal punishment, with a system of "fines and jobations" and even, it seems likely, "juvenile trials", that is, trials run by and for the students themselves.<ref>McCarthy, "Academy," p. 292.</ref> Moreover, instead of the traditional classical studies, the school offered a practical curriculum that stressed science and the modern languages. Barbauld herself taught the foundation subjects of reading and religion to the youngest boys, and geography, history, composition, rhetoric and science to higher grade levels.<ref>McCarthy, "Academy," p. 298.</ref>

She was a dedicated teacher, producing a "weekly chronicle" for the school and writing theatrical pieces for the students to perform.<ref>McCarthy, "Academy," p. 306.</ref> Barbauld had a profound effect on many of her students. One who went on to great success was [[William Taylor (man of letters)|William Taylor]], a pre-eminent scholar of German literature, who referred to Barbauld as "the mother of his mind".<ref>Quoted in Rodgers, p. 75.</ref>

==Political involvement and Hampstead==
[[File:Official medallion of the British Anti-Slavery Society (1795).jpg|thumb|left|alt=Drawing which shows a slave kneeling and holding up his clasped and manacled hands. Underneath him, a banner says "Am I Not a Man and a Brother?"|Design for the medallion of the [[Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade|Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade]] (formed 1787), struck by [[Josiah Wedgwood]]]]

In September 1785, the Barbaulds left Palgrave for a tour of France. By this time Rochemont's mental health was deteriorating and he was no longer able to carry out his teaching duties.<ref>Rodgers, p. 92.</ref> In 1787, they moved to [[Hampstead]], where Rochemont was asked to serve as the minister at what later became [[Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel]]. It was here that Barbauld became close friends with [[Joanna Baillie]], the playwright.

Although no longer in charge of a school, the Barbaulds did not abandon their commitment to education; they often boarded one or two pupils recommended by personal friends.<ref>Rodgers, pp. 101–102.</ref> Barbauld lived on Hampstead's [[Church Row, Hampstead|Church Row]] in the early 1800s, though it is not known exactly which house she occupied.<ref name="McCarthy2008">McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'', p. 615.</ref>

During this time, the heyday of the [[French Revolution]], Barbauld published her most radical political pieces. From 1787 to 1790, [[Charles James Fox]] attempted to convince the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]] to pass a law granting Dissenters full citizenship rights. When this bill was defeated for the third time, Barbauld wrote one of her most passionate pamphlets, ''An Address to the Opposers of the Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts'' (see [[Test Acts|Test Act]]). Readers were shocked to discover that such a well-reasoned argument should come from a woman.

In 1791, after [[William Wilberforce]]'s attempt to [[Abolitionism in the United Kingdom|abolish]] the [[Atlantic slave trade|slave trade]] had failed, Barbauld published her ''Epistle to William Wilberforce Esq. On the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade'', which not only lamented the fate of the enslaved, but warned of the cultural and social degeneration the British people could expect if they did not abolish slavery. In 1792, she continued this theme of national responsibility in an anti-war sermon entitled ''Sins of Government, Sins of the Nation'' which argued that each individual is responsible for the actions of the nation: "We are called upon to repent of national sins, because we can help them, and because we ought to help them".<ref>Barbauld, "Sins of Government, Sins of the Nation." (2002), p. 300.</ref>

==Stoke Newington and later life==
In 1802, the Barbaulds moved to [[Stoke Newington]], where they lived at 113 [[Stoke Newington Church Street|Church Street]]. Rochemont took over the pastoral duties of [[Newington Green Unitarian Church|the Unitarian Chapel at Newington Green]], a mile away. Barbauld herself was happy to be nearer her brother, [[John Aikin|John]], as her husband's mind was rapidly failing.<ref>Rodgers, pp. 128–29.</ref> Rochemont developed a "violent antipathy to his wife and he was liable to fits of insane fury directed against her. One day at dinner he seized a knife and chased her round the table so that she only saved herself by jumping out of the window."<ref>Rodgers, p. 136; Le Breton, pp. 121–22.</ref>

Such scenes repeated themselves to Barbauld's great sadness and real danger, but she refused to leave him. Rochemont drowned himself in the nearby [[New River (London)|New River]] in 1808 and his widow was overcome with grief. When she returned to writing, she produced the radical poem ''[[Eighteen Hundred and Eleven]]'' (1812), which depicted England as a ruin.<ref>Rodgers, pp. 139–141.</ref>

It was reviewed so viciously that according to Barbauld scholar William McCarthy, there "were no further separate publications from her pen", and Lucy Aikens went so far as to say, erroneously, that Barbauld gave up writing altogether.<ref>McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'', pp. 476-481.</ref>

McCarthy explains that Barbauld "did not entirely withdraw from print or from writing", but that she withdrew into "the waters of a deep and long depression".<ref>McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'', p. 481.</ref> Barbauld confessed that her pen had been lazy in 1813, but after that year she wrote as many as three "dialogues" and an "Ode to Remorse".<ref>McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'', pp. 482–484, 487.</ref> Until the 2010s, ''Eighteen Hundred and Eleven'' was considered to have ended Barbauld's career, but recent scholarship has reinstated it to the [[Canon (basic principle)|canon]] of Romantic literature as well as Barbauld's reputation as a poet of the period.<ref>Murphy, p. 459.</ref> It is now often viewed by scholars as her greatest poetic achievement.<ref>McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'', pp. 476–481.</ref>

Barbauld died in 1825, a renowned writer, and was buried in the family vault in [[Stoke Newington (parish)|St Mary's, Stoke Newington]]. After her death, a marble tablet was erected in the Newington Green Chapel with the following inscription:
{{Col-begin}}
{{Col-2}}
<poem style="text-align: center;">
In Memory of
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD,
Daughter of John Aikin, D.D.
And Wife of
The Rev. Rochemont Barbauld,
Formerly the Respected Minister of this Congregation.
She was born at Kibworth in Leicestershire, 20 June 1743,
and died at Stoke Newington, 9 March 1825.
Endowed by the Giver of all Good
With Wit, Genius, Poetic Talent, and a Vigorous Understanding
She Employed these High Gifts
in Promoting the Cause of Humanity, Peace, and Justice,
of Civil and Religious Liberty,
of Pure, Ardent, and Affectionate Devotion.
Let the Young, Nurtured by her Writings in the Pure Spirit
of Christian Morality;
Let those of Maturer Years, Capable of Appreciating
the Acuteness, the Brilliant Fancy, and Sound Reasoning
of her Literary Compositions;
Let the Surviving few who shared her Delightful
and Instructive Conversation,
Bear Witness
That this Monument Records
No Exaggerated Praise.<ref>Le Breton, p. 197.</ref>
</poem>
{{Col-2}}
[[File:Barbauld1811.JPG|thumb|upright=1|alt=Page reads "Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, A Poem. By Anna Laetitia Barbauld. London: Printed for J. Johnson and Co., St. Paul's Churchyard. 1812."|Original title page from ''[[Eighteen Hundred and Eleven]]'']]
{{Col-end}}

==Legacy==
[[File:HallowayBarbauld.jpg|thumb|left|Engraving, published in 1785]] 
At her death, Barbauld was lauded in the ''Newcastle Magazine'' as "unquestionably the first [''i.e.'', best] of our female poets, and one of the most eloquent and powerful of our prose writers" and the ''Imperial Magazine'' declared "so long as letters shall be cultivated in Britain, or wherever the English language shall be known, so long will the name of this lady be respected".<ref>Quoted in McCarthy, "Posthumous Reception," p. 165.</ref> She was favourably compared to both [[Joseph Addison]] and [[Samuel Johnson]].<ref>McCarthy, "Posthumous Reception," p. 166.</ref>

By 1925, however, she was remembered only as a moralising writer for children, if that. It was not until the advent of [[feminist literary criticism]] in the academic world of the 1970s and 1980s that Barbauld finally began to be included in literary history.<ref name =VoExvii>McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'' p. xvii.</ref>

Young poets such as Norwich's [[Amelia Opie]] greatly admired Barbauld, sending her poetry in 1787 for her to critique.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hawkins |first1=A. |title=Romantic women Writers Reviewed |date=2022 |publisher=Taylor and Francis Group |page=324 |isbn=9781000743753 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ACB-EAAAQBAJ&dq=anna+letitia+barbould+John+opie&pg=RA2-PA324 |access-date=11 June 2023 |quote=She seems also to have been skilled in poetry as she sent manuscript copies of an early poem, 'The Virgin's Love', to Anna Laetitia Barbauld in 1787. Amelia married painter John Opie in 1798.}}</ref> However, by the early 19th century, Barbauld's remarkable disappearance from the literary landscape had taken place. This is due to a number of reasons. One of the most important was the disdain heaped upon her by [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]] and [[William Wordsworth]], poets who in their youthful, radical days had looked to her poetry for inspiration, but in their later, conservative years dismissed her work.

Once these poets had become canonised, their opinions held sway.<ref>McCarthy, "Posthumous Reception," pp. 167–168.</ref> Moreover, the intellectual ferment of which Barbauld was an important part of – particularly at the [[Dissenting academies]] – had by the end of the 19th century come to be associated with the "philistine" middle class, as [[Matthew Arnold]] put it. The reformist 18th-century middle class was later held responsible for the excesses and abuses of the industrial age.<ref>McCarthy, "Posthumous Reception," p. 169.</ref> Finally, the [[Victorian era|Victorian]]s viewed Barbauld as "an icon of sentimental saintliness" and "erased her political courage, her tough mindedness, [and] her talent for humor and irony", to arrive at a literary figure that [[Literary modernism|modernists]] despised.<ref>McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'', pp. xiii–xiv.</ref>

As literary studies developed into a discipline at the end of the 19th century, the story of the origins of [[Romanticism]] in England emerged along with it. According to this version of literary history, Coleridge and Wordsworth were the dominant poets of the age.<ref>McCarthy, "Posthumous Reception," pp. 174–175.</ref> This view held sway for almost a century. Even with the advent of feminist criticism in the 1970s, Barbauld did not receive her due. As Margaret Ezell explains, feminist critics wanted to resurrect a particular kind of woman – one who was angry, who resisted the gender roles of her time, and who attempted to create a sisterhood with other women.<ref>McCarthy, "Posthumous Reception," p. 182.</ref> Barbauld did not easily fit into these categories. Indeed, it was not until Romanticism and its canon began to be re-examined through a deep reassessment of feminism itself that a picture emerged of the vibrant voice that Barbauld had contributed.<ref name =VoExvii/>

[[H. P. Lovecraft]] praised her [[Gothic fragment]] "The Story of Sir Bertrand" in his essay "[[Supernatural Horror in Literature]]" (composed 1925–34), describing it as a story "in which the strings of genuine terror were truly touched with no clumsy hand" and praises "the real vibration to the note of outer darkness and mystery which distinguishes Mrs. Barbauld’s fragment."<ref>https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/essays/shil.aspx {{Bare URL inline|date=August 2025}}</ref> However, the attribution of this Bertrand-story to Anna is probably incorrect. It has been pointed out several times that this piece was written by her brother John, see for instance the ''Analytical Review'' in 1798, as well as the preface by John Aikin's daughter Lucy Aikin to Anna's collected works in 1825, stating that "Sir Bertrand: A Fragment" have "been generally misappropriated" and has been repeatedly ascribed to Mrs. Barbauld, even in print". The story was printed beside an essay in their ''Miscellaneous Pieces, In Prose'' in 1773, as "On the pleasure derived from Objects of Terror; with Sir Bertrand, a Fragment", and according to Lucy Anna wrote the essay and John the story.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Summers |first=Montague |title=The Gothic Quest: A History of the Gothic Novel |publisher=Russell & Russell, Inc |year=1964 |edition=2nd |location=New York |publication-date=1938 |pages=48}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Barbauld |first=Anna Lætitia |title=The Works of Anna Lætitia Barbauld. With a Memoir by Lucy Aikin, vol I |publisher=Richard Taylor, Shoe-Lane, London |year=1825 |pages=xiii-xiv}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Aikin, Barbauld |first=John, Anna Lætitia |title=Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose, by John Aikin, M.D. and Anna Lætitia Barbauld |publisher=Printed for J Johnson, in St Paul's Church-Yard |year=1773 |edition=3d |location=London |publication-date=1792}}</ref>

Barbauld's works fell out of print and no full-length scholarly [[biography]] of her was written until William McCarthy's ''Anna Letitia Barbauld: Voice of the Enlightenment'' in 2009.<ref>McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'', p. xv.</ref>

Barbauld's adopted son Charles married a daughter of [[Gilbert Wakefield]].<ref>McCarthy, "Posthumous Reception," p. 444.</ref> Their child, [[Anna Letitia Le Breton]], wrote literary memoirs, which included a ''Memoir of Mrs. Barbauld, including Letters and Notices of her Family and Friends'' in 1874.<ref>see Le Breton, Anna Letitia. ''Memoir of Mrs. Barbauld, including Letters and Notices of Her Family and Friends. By her Great Niece Anna Letitia Le Breton''.</ref>

In 2008, the [[National Portrait Gallery, London|National Portrait Gallery]] in London presented Barbauld's portrait alongside a number of other [[Celebrity|celebrated]] [[Bluestocking]]s.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Murphy |first1=O. |title=Anna Letitia Barbauld: New Perspectives |date=2013 |publisher=Bucknell University Press |page=284 |isbn=9781611485509 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xVRzAgAAQBAJ&dq=francis+boscawen+baubald&pg=PA284 |access-date=11 June 2023}}</ref>

==Literary analysis==
===Poetry===
[[File:BarbauldMouse.jpg|right|thumb|alt=Page reads: "The MOUSE's PETITION,* Found in the Trap where he had been confin'd all Night. Parcere subjectis, & debellare superbos. VIRGIL. Oh! hear a pensive captive's prayer, For liberty that sighs; And never let thine heart be shut Against the prisoner's cries. For here forlorn and sad I sit, Within the wiry gate; *To Doctor PRIESTLEY"|"The Mouse's Petition" from Barbauld's ''Poems'' (1773)]]
Barbauld's wide-ranging poetry has been read primarily by [[feminist literary criticism|feminist literary critics]] interested in recovering women writers important in their own time, but forgotten in literary history. [[Isobel Armstrong]]'s work represents one way to do such a study; she argues that Barbauld, like other [[Romanticism|Romantic]] women poets:

{{blockquote|... neither consented to the idea of a special feminine discourse nor accepted an account of themselves as belonging to the realm of the nonrational. They engaged with two strategies to deal with the problem of affective discourse. First, they used the customary 'feminine' forms and languages, but they turned them to analytical account and used them to think with. Second, they challenged the male philosophical traditions that led to a demeaning discourse of feminine experience and remade those traditions.<ref>Armstrong, pp. 15–16.</ref>}}

In her subsequent analysis of "Inscription for an Ice-House" Armstrong points to Barbauld's challenge of [[Edmund Burke]]'s [[A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful|characterisation of the sublime and the beautiful]] and [[Adam Smith]]'s economic theories in ''[[The Wealth of Nations]]'' as evidence for this interpretation.<ref>Armstrong, pp. 18 and 22–23.</ref>
[[File:Poems of Anna Laetitia Aikin.tif|thumb|''Poems'' (1777)]]
The work of Marlon Ross and [[Anne K. Mellor]] represents a second way to apply the insights of [[feminist theory]] to the recovery of women writers. They argue that Barbauld and other Romantic women poets carved out a distinctive feminine voice in the literary sphere. As a woman and a dissenter, Barbauld had a unique perspective on society, according to Ross, and it was this specific position that obliged her to publish social commentary.<ref>Marlon B. Ross, "Configurations of Feminine Reform: The Woman Writers and the Tradition of Dissent." ''Re-visioning Romanticism: British Women Writers, 1776–1837'', eds Carol Shiner Wilson and Joel Haefner. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press (1994), p. 93.</ref> Ross points out, however, that women were in a double bind: "They could choose to speak politics in nonpolitical modes, and thus risk greatly diminishing the clarity and pointedness of their political passion, or they could choose literary modes that were overtly political while trying to infuse them with a recognizable 'feminine' decorum, again risking a softening of their political agenda".<ref>Ross, p. 94.</ref> So Barbauld and other Romantic women poets often wrote [[Occasional poetry|occasional poems]]. These had traditionally commented, often satirically, on national events, but by the end of the 18th century were increasingly serious and personal. Women wrote [[sensibility|sentimental]] poems, a style then much in vogue, on personal occasions such as the birth of a child and argued that in commenting on the small occurrences of daily life, they would establish a moral foundation for the nation.<ref>Ross, pp. 96–97.</ref> Scholars such as Ross and Mellor maintain that this adaptation of existing styles and genres is one way in which women poets created a feminine Romanticism.<ref>Mellor, Anne K. ''Romanticism and Gender'', New York: Routledge (1993), p. 7.</ref><ref>Wilson Carol Shiner, "Introduction." ''Re-visioning Romanticism: British Women Writers, 1776–1837'', eds Carol Shiner Wilson and Joel Haefner. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press (1994), p. 6.</ref>

===Political essays and poems===
{{Main|Eighteen Hundred and Eleven}}

According to 18th century studies scholar Harriet Guest, Barbauld's most significant political texts are: ''An Address to the Opposers of the Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts'' (1790), ''Epistle to William Wilberforce on the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade'' (1791), ''Sins of Government, Sins of the Nation'' (1793), and ''[[Eighteen Hundred and Eleven]]'' (1812). As Harriet Guest explains, "The theme Barbauld's essays of the 1790s repeatedly return to is that of the constitution of the public as a religious, civic, and national body, and she is always concerned to emphasize the continuity between the rights of private individuals and those of the public defined in capaciously inclusive terms".<ref>Harriet Guest, ''Small Change: Women, Learning, Patriotism, 1750–1810''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2000), p. 235.</ref>

For three years, from 1787 to 1790, [[English Dissenters|Dissenters]] had been attempting to convince [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|Parliament]] to repeal the [[Test Acts|Test]] and [[Corporation Act 1661|Corporation Acts]], which limited the civil rights of Dissenters. After the repeal was voted down for the third time, Barbauld burst onto the public stage after "nine years of silence".<ref>McCarthy and Kraft, p. 261.</ref> Her highly charged pamphlet is written in a biting and sarcastic tone. It opens, "We thank you for the compliment paid the Dissenters, when you suppose that the moment they are eligible to places of power and profit, all such places will at once be filled with them".<ref>McCarthy and Kraft, p. 263.</ref> She argues that Dissenters deserve the same rights as any other men: "We claim it as men, we claim it as citizens, we claim it as good subjects".<ref>Barbauld, "An Appeal", p. 266.</ref> Moreover, she contends that it is precisely the isolation forced on Dissenters by others that marks them out, not anything inherent in their form of worship.<ref>Barbauld, "An Appeal", pp. 269–270.</ref> Finally, appealing to [[British nationalism]], she maintains that the French cannot be allowed to outstrip Britons in extending liberty.<ref>Barbauld, "An Appeal", pp. 278–79.</ref>

[[File:Blustockings2.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.2|Detail from ''[[:Image:Nine Muses.jpg|Nine Living Muses of Great Britain]]'' by [[Richard Samuel]] (1779); from left: [[Elizabeth Carter]], Barbauld gesturing, [[Angelica Kauffman]], [[Elizabeth Ann Linley|Elizabeth Linley]]|alt=Detail from a painting, showing four women dressed in classical-inspired costumes in front of a pillar]]

In the following year, after one of [[William Wilberforce]]'s many abolitionist legislation failed to pass in the [[Parliament of Great Britain|British Parliament]], Barbauld wrote the ''Epistle to William Wilberforce on the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade'' (1791). In the work, Barbauld lambasted Parliament for their rejection of abolitionist legislation, along with castigating the slave trade; the work focused on the supposed degeneracy of a [[West Indies|West Indian]] [[Planter class|planter]] and his wife which revealed the failings of the "colonial enterprise: [an] indolent, voluptuous, monstrous woman" and a "degenerate, enfeebled man".<ref>Suvir Kaul, ''Poems of Nation, Anthems of Empire: English Verse in the Long Eighteenth Century''. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press (2000), p. 262.</ref>

In 1793, when the British government called on the nation to fast in honour of the war, anti-war Dissenters such as Barbauld were left with a moral quandary: "Obey the order and violate their consciences by praying for success in a war they disapproved? observe the Fast, but preach against the war? defy the Proclamation and refuse to take any part in the Fast?".<ref>McCarthy and Kraft, p. 297.</ref> Barbauld took this opportunity to write a sermon, ''Sins of Government, Sins of the Nation'', on the moral responsibility of the individual. For her, each individual is responsible for the actions of the nation because he or she constitutes part of the nation. The essay attempts to determine what the proper role of the individual is in the state, and while she argues that "insubordination" can undermine a government, she admits there are lines of "conscience" that cannot be crossed in obeying a government.<ref>Barbauld, "Sins of Government, Sins of the Nation," pp. 316–17.</ref>

In ''Eighteen Hundred and Eleven'' (1812), written after [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Britain]] had been at war with France for a decade and was on the brink of losing the [[Napoleonic Wars]], Barbauld presented a shocking [[Juvenal]]ian [[satire]];<ref name="auto">McCarthy and Kraft, p. 160.</ref> she argued that the British Empire was waning and the American Empire waxing. It is to America that Britain's wealth and fame will now go, she contended, and Britain will become a mere empty ruin. She tied this decline directly to Britain's participation in the Napoleonic Wars:
{{blockquote|<poem>
And think'st thou, Britain, still to sit at ease,
An island Queen amidst thy subject seas,
While the vext billows, in their distant roar,
But soothe thy slumbers, and but kiss thy shore?
To sport in wars, while danger keeps aloof,
Thy grassy turf unbruised by hostile hoof?
So sing thy flatterers; but, Britain, know,
Thou who hast shared the guilt must share the woe.
Nor distant is the hour; low murmurs spread,
And whispered fears, creating what they dread;
Ruin, as with an earthquake shock, is here
</poem>|(lines 39–49)}}
<!--Please do not change to c-quotes – they are not required and look silly (Awadewit)-->
Not surprisingly, this pessimistic view of the future was poorly received: "Reviews, whether in liberal or conservative magazines, ranged from cautious to patronizingly negative to outrageously abusive".<ref name="auto"/> [[Emma J. Clery|E. J. Clery]] states that Barbauld deliberately invited controversy to stir up public debate over the "government war policy and ... specifically [over] the system of trade blockades".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Clery|first=E. J.|title=Eighteen Hundred and Eleven: Poetry, Protest and Economic Crisis|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2017|isbn=9781107189225|location=Cambridge|pages=228}}</ref> The blockade policy was indeed changed in 1812, with a resulting improvement in trade.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Clery|first=E. J.|title=Eighteen Hundred and Eleven: Poetry, Protest and Economic Crisis|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2017|isbn=9781107189225|location=Cambridge|pages=229}}</ref> Clery's 2017 study of ''Eighteen Hundred and Eleven'' recognizes Barbauld as contributing to this outcome and calls for replacing the image of her as a victim of reviewers with an image of her as an agent of change.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Clery|first=E. J.|title=Eighteen Hundred and Eleven: Poetry, Protest and Economic Crisis|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2017|isbn=9781107189225|location=Cambridge|pages=230}}</ref> But Barbauld was always mindful of the human cost of politics. Even when Britain was on the verge of winning the war, she wrote to a friend, "I do not know how to rejoice at this victory, splendid as it is, over Buonaparte, when I consider the horrible waste of life, the mass of misery, which such gigantic combats must occasion".<ref>Quoted in Le Breton, p. 132.</ref>

===Children's literature===
{{Main|Lessons for Children|Hymns in Prose for Children|Evenings at Home, or The Juvenile Budget Opened}}

[[File:BarbauldLessons.jpg|right|thumb|upright=1.4|alt=Page reads "Lessons for Children. Part I. For Children from Two to Three Years Old. London: Printed for J. Johnson, No. 72, St. Paul's Church-Yard, 1801. [Price Six Pence.]"|Title page from ''[[Lessons for Children|Lessons for Children of Three Years Old, Part I]]'']]
Barbauld's ''[[Lessons for Children]]'' and ''[[Hymns in Prose for Children]]'' made a revolution in children's literature. For the first time, the needs of the child reader were seriously considered. Barbauld demanded that her books be printed in large type with wide margins so that children could easily read them, and even more importantly, she developed a style of "informal dialogue between parent and child" that would dominate children's literature for a generation.<ref>McCarthy, "Mother of All Discourses," pp. 88–89.</ref> In ''Lessons for Children'', a four-volume, age-adapted reading primer, Barbauld employs the concept of a mother teaching her son. It is more than likely that many of the events in these stories were inspired by Barbauld's experience of teaching her own son, Charles. The series is far more than a way to acquire literacy – it also introduces the reader to "elements of society's symbol-systems and conceptual structures, inculcates an ethics, and encourages him to develop a certain kind of sensibility".<ref>McCarthy, "Mother of All Discourses," p. 93.</ref> Moreover, it exposes the child to the principles of "botany, zoology, numbers, change of state in chemistry... the money system, the calendar, geography, meteorology, agriculture, political economy, geology, [and] astronomy."<ref>McCarthy, "Mother of All Discourses," p. 100.</ref> The series was relatively popular. [[Maria Edgeworth]] commented in the educational treatise that she co-authored with her father, ''[[Practical Education]]'' (1798): it is "one of the best books for young people from seven to ten years old, that has yet appeared".<ref>Edgeworth, Maria. ''Practical Education'', ''The Novels and Selected Works of Maria Edgeworth'', ed. Susan Manly, Vol. 11. London: Pickering and Chatto (2003), p. 195.</ref>

Some at the time saw Barbauld's work as marking a shift in children's literature from fantasy to didacticism. [[Sarah Burney]], in her popular novel ''Traits of Nature'' (1812), has the 14-year-old Christina Cleveland remark, "Well, then; you know fairy-tales are forbidden pleasures in all modern school-rooms. Mrs. Barbauld, and [[Sarah Trimmer|Mrs. Trimmer]], and [[Maria Edgeworth|Miss Edgeworth]], and a hundred others, have written good books for children, which have thrown poor [[Mother Goose]], and the [[One Thousand and One Nights|Arabian Nights]], quite out of favour; – at least, with papas and mamas."<ref>Miss [Sarah] Burney: ''Traits of Nature'' (London: Henry Colburn, 1812), Vol. II, pp. 68–69.</ref> A more strident criticism was made by the Lambs, telling of Mary's abortive search for a copy of ''[[The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes|Goody Two Shoes]]'', which her brother claimed was because "Mrs. Barbauld's stuff has banished all the old classics of the nursery".<ref>''The Letters of Charles and Mary Anne Lamb'', ed. Edwin W. Marrs, Jr. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1976). Vol. 2, pp. 81–82. To [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]] dated 23 October 1802. Quoted in Norma Clarke: "The Cursed Barbauld Crew..." In: Hilton, Mary, et al.: ''Opening the Nursery Door: Reading, Writing and Childhood 1600–1900''. London: Routledge, 1997, p. 91.</ref>

''Lessons for Children'' and ''Hymns in Prose'' had, for children's books, an unprecedented impact; not only did they influence the poetry of [[William Blake]], [[William Wordsworth]], and [[Jane Taylor (poet)|Jane Taylor]],<ref>McCarthy, "Mother of All Discourses," pp. 85–86; Ruwe, "Barbauld and the Body-Part Game," 36–38.</ref> they were also used to teach several generations of schoolchildren. Children's literature scholar William McCarthy states, "[[Elizabeth Barrett Browning]] could still quote the opening lines of ''Lessons for Children'' at age thirty-nine".<ref>McCarthy, "Mother of All Discourses," p. 85.</ref> Although both [[Samuel Johnson]] and [[Charles James Fox]] ridiculed Barbauld's children's books and believed that she was wasting her talents,<ref>Rodgers, p. 71.</ref> Barbauld herself saw such writing as noble and encouraged others to follow her. As Betsy Rodgers, her biographer explains, "She gave prestige to the writing of juvenile literature, and by not lowering her standard of writing for children, she inspired others to write on a similar high standard".<ref>Rodgers, p. 72.</ref> In fact, because of Barbauld, [[Sarah Trimmer]] and [[Hannah More]] were inspired to write for poor children as well as organise a large-scale [[Sunday school]] movement, [[Ellenor Fenn]] to write and design a series of readers and games for middle-class children, and [[Richard Lovell Edgeworth]] to begin one of the first systematic studies of [[child development]], which would culminate in an educational treatise authored by [[Maria Edgeworth]] and him, and in a large body of children's stories by Maria.<ref>Mitzi Myers, "Of Mice and Mothers: Mrs. Barbauld's 'New Walk' and Gendered Codes in Children's Literature". ''Feminine Principles and Women's Experience in American Composition and Rhetoric'', eds. Louise Wetherbee Phelps and Janet Ennig. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press (1995), p. 261.</ref>

{{quote box 
| width = 40%
|align=left
|quote=''Tut[or]. Solution'' is when a solid put into a fluid entirely disappears in it, leaving the liquor clear. Thus when I throw this lump of sugar into my tea, you see it gradually wastes away till it is all gone; and then I can taste it in every single drop of my tea; but the tea is clear as before.
|source=—Anna Laetitia Barbauld, "A Tea Lecture", ''Evenings at Home'' (1793)<ref>[Barbauld, Anna Laetitia and John Aikin.] ''Evenings at Home; or, The Juvenile Budget Opened.'' Vol. 2, 2nd ed. London: Printed for J. Johnson, 1794. Eighteenth Century Collections Online.</ref>
}}

Barbauld also collaborated with her brother John Aikin on the six-volume series ''[[Evenings at Home]]'' (1793). It is a miscellany of stories, fables, dramas, poems, and dialogues. In many ways this series encapsulates the ideals of an [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] education: "curiosity, observation, and reasoning".<ref>Fyfe, Aileen. "Reading Children's Books in Late Eighteenth-Century Dissenting Families." ''The Historical Journal'' 43.2 (2000), p. 469.</ref> For example, the stories encourage the learning of science through hands-on activities: in "A Tea Lecture" the child learns that tea-making is "properly an operation of ''chemistry''" and lessons on [[evaporation]], and [[condensation]] follow.<ref>Anna Laetitia Barbauld and John Aikin, ''Evenings at Home; or, The Juvenile Budget Opened'', 6 vols, 2nd ed. London: Printed for J. Johnson (1794) 2: p. 69.</ref> The text also emphasises rationality: in "Things by Their Right Names", a child demands that his father tell him a story about "a bloody murder". The father does so, using some of the fictional tropes of [[fairy tale]]s such as "once upon a time", but confounding his son with details, such as the murderers all "had steel caps on". In the end the child realises his father has told him the story of a battle, and his father comments "I do not know of any ''murders'' half so bloody".<ref>Barbauld and Aikin, 1: pp. 150–152.</ref> Both the tactic of defamiliarising the world to force the reader to think about it rationally, along with the anti-war message of this tale, prevail throughout ''Evenings at Home''. In fact, Michelle Levy, a scholar of the period, argued that the series encouraged readers to "become critical observers of and, where necessary, vocal resisters to authority".<ref>Levy, Michelle. [http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/eighteenth_century_fiction/v019/19.1levy.html "The Radical Education of ''Evenings at Home''.]" ''Eighteenth-Century Fiction'' 19.1–2 (2006–07), p. 123.</ref> This resistance is learned and practised in the home; according to Levy, "''Evenings at Home''... makes the claim that social and political reform must begin in the family".<ref>Levy, p. 127.</ref>

According to [[Lucy Aikin]], Barbauld's niece, Barbauld's contributions to ''Evenings at Home'' consisted of the following pieces: "The Young Mouse", "The Wasp and Bee", "Alfred, a drama", "Animals and Countries", "Canute's Reproof", "The Masque of Nature", "Things by their right Names", "The Goose and Horse", "On Manufactures", "The Flying-fish", "A Lesson in the Art of Distinguishing", "The Phoenix and Dove", "The Manufacture of Paper", "The Four Sisters", and "Live Dolls".<ref>Aikin, Lucy. "Memoir." ''The Works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld''. 2 vols. London: Routledge (1996), pp. xxxvi–xxxvii.</ref>

===Editorial work===
Barbauld edited several major works towards the end of her life, all of which helped to shape the canon as known today. First, in 1804, she edited [[Samuel Richardson]]'s correspondence and wrote an extensive biographical introduction of the man who was perhaps the most influential novelist of the 18th century. Her "212-page essay on his life and works [was] the first substantial Richardson biography".<ref>McCarthy and Kraft, p. 360.</ref> The following year she edited ''Selections from the Spectator, Tatler, Guardian, and Freeholder, with a Preliminary Essay'', a volume of essays emphasising "wit", "manners" and "taste".<ref>Anna Barbauld, "Introduction." ''Selections from the Spectator, Tatler, Guardian, and Freeholder, with a Preliminary Essay''. Quoted in [http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/westbury/Paradigm/Mack.html 14 February 2007.] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060911081626/http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/westbury/Paradigm/Mack.html |date=11 September 2006 }}</ref> In 1811, she assembled ''The Female Speaker'', an anthology of literature chosen specifically for young girls. Because, according to Barbauld's philosophy, what one reads when one is young is formative, she carefully considered the "delicacy" of her female readers and "direct[ed] her choice to subjects more particularly appropriate to the duties, the employments, and the dispositions of the softer sex".<ref>Anna Laetitia Barbauld, ''The Female Speaker; or, Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose and Verse, Selected from the Best Writers, and Adapted to the Use of Young Women''. 2nd ed. London: Printed for Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, etc. (1816), p. vi.</ref> The anthology is subdivided into sections such as "moral and didactic pieces" and "descriptive and pathetic pieces"; it includes poetry and prose by, among others, [[Alexander Pope]], [[Hannah More]], [[Maria Edgeworth]], [[Samuel Johnson]], [[James Thomson (poet, born 1700)|James Thomson]] and [[Hester Chapone]].

Barbauld's 50-volume series of ''The British Novelists'', published in 1810 with a broad introductory essay on the history of the novel, allowed her to place her mark on literary history. It was "the first English edition to make comprehensive critical and historical claims" and was in every respect "a canon-making enterprise".<ref>McCarthy and Kraft, p. 375.</ref> In an insightful essay, Barbauld legitimises the novel, then still a controversial genre, by connecting it to ancient Persian and Greek literature. For her, a good novel is "an epic in prose, with more of character and less (indeed in modern novels nothing) of the supernatural machinery".<ref>Barbauld, Anna Laetitia. ''The British Novelists; with An Essay; and Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, by Mrs. Barbauld''. London: Printed for F. C. and J. Rivington, [etc.] (1810), p. 3.</ref> Barbauld maintains that novel-reading has a multiplicity of benefits. Not only is it a "domestic pleasure", but it is also a way to "infus[e] principles and moral feelings" into the population.<ref>Barbauld, ''The British Novelists'', pp. 47–48.</ref> Barbauld also provided introductions to each of the fifty authors included in the series.

==List of works==
{{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooks=yes|viaf=9896232}}
Unless otherwise noted, this list is taken from Wolicky's entry on Barbauld in the ''[[Dictionary of Literary Biography]]'' (each year with a link connects to its corresponding "[year] in literature" article, for verse works, or "[year] in literature" article, for prose or mixed prose and verse):
*1768: ''Corsica: An Ode''
*1773: ''[http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/barbauld/1773/1773-poems.html Poems]'', {{Cite book
|title= Poems
|year= 1777
|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=6082729&custom_att_2=simple_viewer&search_terms=DTL6&pds_handle=
}}
*1773: ''Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose'' (with John Aikin)
*1775: ''Devotional Pieces, Compiled from the Psalms and the Book of the Job''
*1778: ''[[Lessons for Children]] from Two to Three Years Old'' (London: J. Johnson)<ref name=myers>For dating on these volumes, also see Myers.</ref><ref name=dew>White, Daniel E., Web page titled [http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/C18/biblio/barbauld.html "Selected Bibliography: Anna Letitia Barbauld (1743–1825)"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101212092047/http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/C18/biblio/barbauld.html |date=12 December 2010 }}, at Rutgers University Web site, retrieved 8 January 2009</ref>
*1778: ''Lessons for Children of Three Years Old'' (London: J. Johnson)
*1779: ''Lessons for Children from Three to Four Years Old'' (London: J. Johnson)<ref name=myers/>
*1781: ''[[Hymns in Prose for Children]]'' (London: J. Johnson)<ref name=myers/>
*1787: ''Lessons for Children'', Part Three (London: J. Johnson)<ref name=myers/>
*1788: ''Lessons for Children'', Part Four (London: J. Johnson)<ref name=myers/>
*1790: ''An Address to the Opposers of the Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts''
*1791: ''[http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/barbauld/wilberforce/wilberforce.html An Epistle to William Wilberforce, Esq. on the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade]'' (London: J. Johnson)<ref name=dew/>
*1792: ''Civic Sermons to the People''
*1792: ''Poems. A new edition, corrected. To which is added, An Epistle to William Wilberforce'' (London: J. Johnson)<ref name=dew/>
*1792: ''Remarks on Mr. Gilbert Wakefield's Enquiry into the Expediency and Propriety of Public or Social Worship'' (London: J. Johnson)<ref name=dew/>
*1792–96: ''[[Evenings at Home|Evenings at Home, or The Juvenile Budget Opened]]'' (with John Aikin, six volumes)
*1793: ''Sins of Government, Sins of the Nation'' (1793)
*1794: ''Reasons for National Penitence Recommended for the Fast Appointed on 28 February 1794''
*1798: [https://web.archive.org/web/20200414133443/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101064253048;view=1up;seq=183 "What is Education?"] ''Monthly Magazine'' 5
*1800: ''Odes, by [[George Dyer (poet)|George Dyer]], M. Robinson, Anna Laetitia Barbauld, J. Ogilvie, &c.'' (Ludlow: G. Nicholson)<ref name=dew/>
*1802: ''The Arts of Life'' (with John Aikin)
*1804: ''The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson . . . to which are prefixed, a biographical account of that author, and observations on his writing'', (London: Richard Phillips;<ref name=dew/> edited with substantial biographical introduction, 6 vols)
*1805: ''Selections from the Spectator, Tatler, Guardian, and Freeholder, with a Preliminary Essay'' (London: J. Johnson;<ref name=dew/> edited with an introduction, three volumes)
*1805: ''The Poetical Works of [[Mark Akenside]]'' (London: W. Suttaby; edited)<ref name=dew/>
*1810: [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008663282 ''The British Novelists; with an Essay; and Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, by Mrs. Barbauld''], (London: F. C. & J. Rivington;<ref name=dew/> edited with a comprehensive introductory essay and introductions to each author, 50 volumes)
*1810: ''An Essay on the Origin and Progress of Novel-Writing''
*1811: ''The Female Speaker; or, Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose and Verse, Selected from the Best Writers, and Adapted to the Use of Young Women'' (London: J. Johnson;<ref name=dew/> edited)
*1812: ''[[Eighteen Hundred and Eleven]]'' (London: J. Johnson)<ref name=dew/>
*1825: ''The Works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld. With a Memoir by Lucy Aikin'', Volume 1 (London: Longman; edited by Barbauld's niece, Lucy Aikin)<ref name=dew/>
*1826: ''A Legacy for Young Ladies, Consisting of Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose and Verse'' (London: Longman;<ref name=dew/> edited by Barbauld's niece, Lucy Aikin, after Barbauld's death)

==Citations==
{{Reflist|30em}}

=== Bibliography ===

==== Primary sources ====
*Barbauld, Anna Letitia. ''Anna Letitia Barbauld: Selected Poetry & Prose''. Eds. William McCarthy and Elizabeth Kraft. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press Ltd., 2002. {{ISBN|978-1-55111-241-1}}
*Barbauld, Anna Letitia. ''The Poems of Anna Letitia Barbauld''. Ed. William McCarthy and Elizabeth Kraft. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994. {{ISBN|0-8203-1528-1}}
*Barbauld, Anna Letitia. ''The Poems, Revised.'' Ed. William McCarthy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. {{ISBN|9780198704348}}. [This is Vol. 1 (of 4) of ''The Collected Works of Anna Letitia Barbauld,'' Gen. Ed. William McCarthy, Oxford University press, in progress.]

==== Secondary sources ====

===== Biographies =====
* Ellis, Grace. ''[https://archive.org/details/memoirofmrsannal18741elli/page/n141 <!-- pg=1 quote=barbauld. --> A Memoir of Mrs. Anna Laetitia Barbauld with Many of Her Letters]''. 2 vols. Boston: James R. Osgood and Co., 1874. Retrieved on 17 April 2007
* Le Breton, Anna Letitia. ''Memoir of Mrs. Barbauld, including Letters and Notices of Her Family and Friends. By her Great Niece Anna Letitia Le Breton''. London: George Bell and Sons, 1874
* McCarthy, William. ''Anna Anna Letitia Barbauld: Voice of the Enlightenment''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008 {{ISBN|978-0-8018-9016-1}}
* Murch, J. ''[https://archive.org/details/cu31924013349448/page/n3/mode/2up Mrs. Barbauld and her Contemporaries]''. London: Longman, 1877
* Thackeray, Anne Ritchie. ''A Book of Sibyls''. London: Smith, 1883
* Rodgers, Betsy. ''Georgian Chronicle: Mrs. Barbauld and Her Family''. London: Methuen, 1958

===== Other =====
*Armstrong, Isobel. "The Gush of the Feminine: How Can we Read Women's Poetry of the Romantic Period?" ''Romantic Women Writers: Voices and Countervoices''. Eds. Paula R. Feldman and Theresa M. Kelley. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1995 {{ISBN|978-0-87451-724-8}}
*Ellison, Julie. "The Politics of Fancy in the Age of Sensibility." ''Re-Visioning Romanticism: British Women Writers, 1776–1837.'' Ed. Carol Shiner Wilson and Joel Haefner. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1994 {{ISBN|978-0-8122-1421-5}}
*{{cite journal |last=Fyfe |first=Aileen |title=Reading Children's Books in Late Eighteenth-Century Dissenting Families |journal=[[The Historical Journal]] |volume=43 |issue=2 |pages=453–473 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press|Cambridge Journals]] |date=June 2000 |doi=10.1017/S0018246X99001156 |hdl=10023/5653 |s2cid=159819711 |url=https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/10023/5653/1/evenings_HJ_rev_Nov99.pdf |hdl-access=free }}
*{{cite journal |last=Ferguson |first=Frances |author-link=Frances Ferguson |title=The Novel Comes of Age: When Literature Started Talking with Children |journal=[[Differences (journal)|differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies]] |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=37–63 |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |doi=10.1215/10407391-3821688 |date=May 2017 }}
*Guest, Harriet. "Anna Laetitia Barbauld and the Mighty Mothers of Immortal Rome." ''Small Change: Women, Learning, Patriotism, 1750–1810''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000 {{ISBN|978-0-226-31052-7}}
*Janowitz, Anne. ''Women Romantic Poets: Anna Barbauld and Mary Robinson''. Tavistock: Northcote House, 2003 {{ISBN|978-0-7463-0896-7}}
*Lenga, Jesica (2025). "[https://publicaciones.filo.uba.ar/sites/publicaciones.filo.uba.ar/files/Barbauld%2C%20Sobre%20el%20origen%20y%20progreso%20de%20la%20escritura%20de%20novelas.pdf Anna Laetitia Barbauld: intelectual ilustrada, poeta romántica]", en Barbauld, Anna Laetitia, ''Sobre el origen y progreso de la escritura de novelas, Jesica Lenga (ed, trans.),'' Buenos Aires, Editorial de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras.
*{{cite journal |last=Levy |first=Michelle |title=The Radical Education of ''Evenings at Home'' |journal=Eighteenth Century Fiction |volume=19 |issue=1&2 |pages=123–150 |publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]] |doi=10.1353/ecf.2006.0084 |date=Fall 2006 |s2cid=162354886 }}
*{{citation |last=McCarthy |first=William |contribution=The Celebrated Academy at Palgrave: A Documentary History of Anna Letitia Barbauld's School |editor-last=Korshin |editor-first=Paul |title=The age of Johnson: a scholarly annual vol. 8 |pages=279–392 |publisher=AMS Press |location=New York |year=1997 |url=http://www.amspressinc.com/aj_vols.html#8 |isbn=9780404627584 |access-date=11 May 2017 |archive-date=21 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180521170350/http://www.amspressinc.com/aj_vols.html#8 |url-status=dead }}
*McCarthy, William. "A 'High-Minded Christian Lady': The Posthumous Reception of Anna Letitia Barbauld." ''Romanticism and Women Poets: Opening the Doors of Reception''. Eds. Harriet Kramer Linkin and Stephen C. Behrendt. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999 {{ISBN|978-0-8131-2107-9}}
*{{cite journal |last=McCarthy |first=William |title=Mother of All Discourses: Anna Barbauld's ''Lessons for Children'' |journal=Princeton University Library Chronicle |volume=60 |issue=2 |pages=196–219 |publisher=[[Princeton University]] |date=Winter 1999 |url=http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/pulc/pulc_v_60_n_2.pdf |doi=10.25290/prinunivlibrchro.60.2.0196 |access-date=11 May 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181118231150/http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/pulc/pulc_v_60_n_2.pdf |archive-date=18 November 2018 |url-status=dead }}
*McCarthy, William. "'We Hoped the Woman Was Going to Appear': Repression, Desire, and Gender in Anna Letitia Barbauld's Early Poems." ''Romantic Women Writers: Voices and Countervoices.'' Eds. Paula R. Feldman and Theresa M. Kelley. Hanover: Univ. Press of New England, 1995 {{ISBN|978-0-87451-724-8}}
*Mellor, Anne K. "A Criticism of Their Own: Romantic Women Literary Critics." ''Questioning Romanticism''. Ed. John Beer. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1995 {{ISBN|978-0-8018-5052-3}}
*Myers, Mitzi. "Of Mice and Mothers: Mrs. Barbauld's 'New Walk' and Gendered Codes in Children's Literature." ''Feminine Principles and Women's Experience in American Composition and Rhetoric''. Eds. Louise Wetherbee Phelps and Janet Emig. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995 {{ISBN|978-0-8229-5544-3}}
*Murphy, Olivia. "Anna Laetitia Barbauld, ''Eighteen Hundred and Eleven''". ''Handbook of British Romanticism.'' Ed. Ralph Haekel. Boston: De Gruyter, 2017 {{ISBN|978-3-11-037636-4}}
*{{cite journal |last=Robbins |first=Sarah |title=''Lessons for Children'' and Teaching Mothers: Mrs. Barbauld's Primer for the Textual Construction of Middle-Class Domestic Pedagogy |journal=[[The Lion and the Unicorn (journal)|The Lion and the Unicorn]] |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=135–151 |publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]] |doi=10.1353/uni.0.0058 |date=December 1993 |s2cid=143092185 }}
*Ross, Marlon. "Configurations of Feminine Reform: The Woman Writers and the Tradition of Dissent." ''Re-visioning Romanticism: British Women Writers, 1776–1837''. Eds. Carol Shiner Wilson and Joel Haefner. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994 {{ISBN|978-0-8122-1421-5}}
*Ruwe, Donelle. "Barbauld and the Body-Part Game: Maternal Pedagogy in the Long Eighteenth Century." ''Mothers in Children's and Young Adult Literature: From the Eighteenth Century to Postfeminism.'' Eds. Karen Coats and Lisa Rowe Fraustino. University of Mississippi Press, 2016. 27–44
*{{cite journal |last=White |first=Daniel E. |title=The "Joineriana": Anna Barbauld, the Aikin Family Circle, and the Dissenting Public Sphere |journal=[[Eighteenth-Century Studies]] |volume=32 |issue=4 |pages=511–533 |publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]] |doi=10.1353/ecs.1999.0041 |date=Summer 1999 |s2cid=144947971 }}

==External links==
{{wikisource|author:Anna Laetitia Barbauld|Anna Laetitia Barbauld}}
{{wikiquote}}
{{commons category|Anna Laetitia Barbauld}}
{{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooks=yes|viaf=9896232}}
*[http://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/authors/pers00149.shtml Anna Laetitia Barbauld] at the [http://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/ Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)]
*{{Gutenberg author |id=5368| name=Anna Letitia Barbauld}}
*{{Internet Archive author |sname=Anna Laetitia Barbauld}}
* [https://eb11.uvic.ca/barbauld_anna_letitia.html Anna Letitia Barbauld by Elizabeth Kraft, in Then & Now: Romantic-Era Poets in the Encyclopedia Britannica (2023)] 
*{{Google books author}}
*{{Librivox author |id=8140}}
*[http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/barbauld/biography.html Anna Letitia Barbauld] at [http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/ A Celebration of Women Writers]
*Several of Barbauld's writings are [http://www.wwp.northeastern.edu/ available] from the [[Women Writers Project]] by subscription.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070106015457/http://www.orgs.muohio.edu/womenpoets/barbauld/work.htm Prose Works of Anna Barbauld]
*[https://www.usask.ca/english/barbauld/ Selected works of Anna Barbauld including a full-color facsimile of ''The Works of Anna Lætitia Barbauld'' (1825)]
{{Romanticism}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barbauld, Anna Laetitia}}
[[Category:Anna Laetitia Barbauld| ]]
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