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Volume 1Elizabeth Montagu: An Essay on the writings and Genius ofShakespear - compared with the Greek and French dramatic Poets (1769);Dialogues with the Dead (1760); Selected Letters.Elizabeth Montagu was famousin her lifetime as a letter-writer, Shakespeare critic and patron of thearts. Known as the 'Queen of the Blues', she hosted regular parties attendedby the most celebrated writers of the day, among them Johnson, Burke andHume. She was sister of Sarah Scott, the novelist and historian, and alife-long friend of Elizabeth Carter. A keen promoter of the idea of theintellectual female as a morally serious and useful member of society, sheinvested much of her fortune in cultural patronage and granted several femalewriters annuities.Volume 2Elizabeth Carter: All the Works of Epictetus(1758); Essays from Rambler, no. 44 & 100; Selected Letters andPoetryElizabeth Carter, poet, translator, essayist and letter-writer, wasundoubtedly the most learned of the Bluestockings. Considered something of aprodigy, she lived an independent life in London in the 1730s, contributingpoetry to the influential Gentleman's Magazine and forming connections withJohnson and Richardson among others. Her ground-breaking translation ofEpictetus earned her - apart from financial security - many admirers,including Elizabeth Montagu. The Stoical philosophy of Epictetus formed avital part of the Bluestockings' political and moral thinking and arguablyunderpins Carter's conservatism and retreat from the competitive world ofpublishing.Volume 3Hester Chapone: Letters on the Improvement of the Mind(1733); Advice to a New Married Lady (1777); Letters on Filial Obedience;Selected Poems, Essays & Letters;Catherine Talbot: Reflections on the SevenDays of the Week (1770); A Fairy Tale, Selected Poems, Essays &Letters.Dubbed 'the little spitfire' by Samuel Richardson, Hester MulsoChapone published letters, tales and poetry encouraging women to developtheir rational potential. The success of Letters on the Improvement of theMind was such that it ran into 25 editions.Catherine Talbot was commonlyknown in literary society as 'the learned Miss Talbot' although she chose topublish little during her lifetime. Her letters to Elizabeth Carterconcerning women's social position gained particular recognition for theirwit, passion and clarity.Volume 4Anna Seward: Selected Poems, including Elegyon Captain Cook, Monody on the Death of Major Andre, Llangollen Vale and thepoetical novel Louisa; Selected Letters.Anna Seward, a leading woman poet ofher day, is generally associated with the culture of sensibility. Yet she wasalso closely associated with key figures of the Midlands Enlightenment, asher work, both poetry and prose, reflects. She grew up in Lichfield, one ofthe major provincial literary centres in the later eighteenth-century, in afamily much involved in the literary circles of Samuel Johnson, Thomas Dayand Richard Lovell Edgeworth. Her letters, some of which were intended forpublication, cover a wide range of topics in literature, music and religion,social criticism and the leading events of her time.Volumes 5 and 6SarahScott: A Journey through Every Stage of Life (1754); The Test of Filial Duty;in a Series of Letters, 1772 (1757); Clara Reeve: The Progress of Romance(1785)Sarah Scott, sister of Elizabeth Montagu, was the leading fictionwriter of the first-generation Bluestocking circle and also, if one includesher works of history, the most prolific. Her novels are distinctive, and thetwo novels presented here are original, lively and engaging representationsof the same feminist issues that Scott presented in her utopian novel of1762, Millenium Hall.Clara Reeve was a prolific novelist and critic. TheProgress of Romance was a major work of literary history and the leadingdefence of women's reading in the eighteenth -century.