Abstract
In this chapter underscores the significance of the feminization of the newspaper as a medium by exploring the contributions made by editor, writer and actress Mary Wells to Edward Topham’s trendsetting paper, the World. Despite the predominance of male voices and interests in the world of late eighteenth-century newspapers, as the century progressed women came to play an important role in this media form. They did this as readers of the papers; increasingly as contributors to them; and even occasionally as newspaper editors. In this chapter, I suggest that the focus of newspapers shifted during this period in order to better accommodate and encourage a female audience: theatrical intelligence, fashionable gossip and poetry of all sorts became an important part of the appeal of papers of ‘elegance’ such as the World and the Oracle. This chapter examines the contribution made to Topham and Bell’s popular paper the World not only by female contributors in general, but by one woman in particular, Mary Wells. I suggest here that it was the editorial partnership between Wells and Topham—a partnership based on a shared love of notoriety combined with a shared flair for publicity—that was at the heart of the success of the World.
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Notes
- 1.
See The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Enquiry into the Category of Bourgeois Society. In this much-critiqued book, Habermas argues that the newspaper, along with the male-only institutions of the club and coffeehouse, became important centres for the construction of a bourgeois public sphere.
- 2.
For example, in The Poetry of Mary Robinson: Form and Fame (2011), Daniel Robinson observes merely that “Topham conducted the paper [the World] with the help of his assistant and mistress Mary Wells.” Whereas Marianne Van Remoortel, notes that Wells was “one of the petted darlings of the newspaper, which elaborated frequently on the brilliancy of her performances,” 21.
- 3.
According to C.T. Pillinger and J.M. Pillinger, Topham became so infatuated with Wells that “he called the country house in Suffolk, where he went for hunting and shooting, ‘Cowslip Hall,’ in her honour.” 602.
- 4.
Topham and Wells had three daughters, Maria Cowslip, Harriet and Juliet. The youngest child, a son, was born prematurely and died in infancy.
- 5.
See Annibel Jenkins, 248.
- 6.
Warren Hastings, the former governor general of Bengal, was impeached for ‘high crime and misdemeanors’ in 1786. The case was brought before the House of Lords on 13 February 1785, and he was eventually acquitted of all charges in 1795. For a more detailed account of this trial see Daniel O’Quinn, Staging Governance: Theatrical Imperialism in London 1770–1800.
- 7.
According to Bonds, ‘On 11 February 1797 the Telegraph listed Robinson among forty-two others who “pay to have their names puffed in the newspapers”’ (44).
- 8.
I discuss this poem in more detail in my book Sensibility and Female Poetic Tradition, 35.
- 9.
“Topham and Becky,” Morning Star Tuesday June 2, 1789.
- 10.
Daniel Robinson, “Della Crusca, Anna Matilda, and Ludic Sensibility,” 171. The quotes from the World are from Robinson’s article.
- 11.
Indeed, while an “Amanda” had been contributing poems and letters to newspapers since at least 1775 (see, for example, Amanda’s letter to Mr. J-S-H W—RS, Morning Post and Daily Advertiser 21 Jan 1775) it is impossible to know whether she is the same Amanda who later contributed poetry to the World. I suspect that given the tone and religious tenor of her poetry, the World’s Amanda might well be the woman who is the subject of “Honoria’s” book The Female Mentor: Or, Select Conversations (London: T. Cadell, 1798). Amanda, who was Honoria’s mother, is described in this book as a “female mentor” who became the leader of an “improving and rational society,” primarily for the education of women, that assembled at her house once a fortnight. A portrait of this impressive woman is included in the second volume of Honoria’s book, published in 1798.
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Engel, Laura. Austen, Actresses, and Accessories: Much Ado About Muffs. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan. “Notorious Celebrity: Mary Wells, Madness and Theatricality.” Eighteenth-Century Women: Studies in Their Lives, Work and Culture 5 (2008): 185–209.
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Werkmeister, Lucyle. The London Daily Press, 1772–1792. Lincoln: The University of Nebraska Press, 1963.
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Knowles, C. (2023). Mary Wells, Edward Topham and the Feminization of the Late Eighteenth Century Newspaper. In: Della Cruscan Poetry, Women and the Fashionable Newspaper. Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37267-4_2
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