Talbot, Catherine (1721–1770)

English Bluestocking, essayist, and letter writer. Born in May 1721 in Berkshire, England; died on January 9, 1770, in London; daughter of Edward Talbot(archdeacon of Berkshire) and Mary (Martyn) Talbot; never married; no children.

Essayist Catherine Talbot was born in Berkshire, England, in 1721, the only child of Mary Martyn Talbot and Archdeacon Edward Talbot, who died a few months before her birth. Catherine and Mary were then taken in by the family of Edward Secker, bishop of Oxford and later archbishop of Canterbury, in whose home they would remain throughout most of Catherine's life. Secker tutored Talbot in modern languages, including German, Italian, and French, as well as in Latin; she was also taught geography and painting in addition to religious education. She put her excellent education, unusual for a woman of the 18th century, to use in composing moral essays and poetry.

Deeply devout, Talbot wrote treatises on scripture and other religious topics. Although she shared these with friends who admired her writing, she refused to allow the publication of all except one, which appeared in Samuel Johnson's Rambler in 1750. She was well known in London literary circles, and belonged to the group of well-educated women writers and scholars called the Bluestocking Circle. Talbot was also a prolific correspondent, and many of her letters to her Bluestocking friends have been preserved, including almost 30 years of letters to her closest friend, the poet Elizabeth Carter . After suffering many years of ill health, Catherine Talbot died at age 49 of cancer. Carter arranged for the posthumous publication of Talbot's collected religious essays, entitled Reflections on the Seven Days of the Week. A second collection, Essays on Various Subjects, appeared in 1772. Her work also appeared in the 1792 anthology The Athenian Letters. Talbot's letters to Carter, for which she was best known in the 19th century, were collected and published by Carter's nephew in 1809.

sources:

Myers, Silvia. The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship, and the Life of the Mind in Eighteenth-Century England. NY: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Pennington, Montagu, ed. A Series of Letters between Mrs. Elizabeth Carter and Catherine Talbot, from the year 1741 to 1770. London: Rivington, 1809.

Shattock, Joanne. The Oxford Guide to British Women Writers. NY: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Laura York , M.A. in History, University of California, Riverside, California