Audio
Exhibition: The Bluestocking circle| Celebrating Modern Muses| A Revolution in Female Manners
Audio
Hear readings from a selection of letters, poems and books written by or about the women who feature in the exhibition. Alternatively, please download the full textual transcript.
Elizabeth Montagu (née Robinson)
by and published by John Raphael Smith, after Sir Joshua Reynolds
published 10 April 1776 (1775)
NPG D13746
Hear about the meetings of the Bluestocking Circle
Bluestocking Conversation Parties
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Hannah More
by Edward Scriven, published by Thomas Cadell the Younger, after Frances Reynolds
published 4 June 1838 (1780)
NPG D13788
Discover how women had to remain virtuous while being able to explore new possibilities for self improvement
Women, Virtue and Learning
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Elizabeth Carter
by Sir Thomas Lawrence
1788-1789
NPG 28
Hear about how intellectual and emotional friendship between women formed the foundation of bluestocking culture
Female Friendship
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Portraits in the Characters of the Muses in the Temple of Apollo
by Richard Samuel
1778
NPG 4905
Discover more about the Living Muses of Great Britain in print and in paint
The Living Muses of Great Britain
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Elizabeth Montagu (née Robinson); Anna Letitia Barbauld (née Aikin)
after Thomas Holloway
published 1 July 1776
NPG D4458
An introduction to discover the eighteenth-century fashion for biographies of illustrious intellectual women
Celebrating Intellectual Women
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Mary Wollstonecraft
by John Chapman, after Unknown artist
published 1798
NPG D7842
Hear about the changing attitudes to intellectual women and the demise of the bluestockings
Revolution, Representation and Reputation
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