Notable Literary Figures: Addison, Astell, Behn & More
Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
Joseph Addison was an English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician. He is usually remembered alongside his long-standing friend, Richard Steele, with whom he founded The Spectator magazine. He studied at Oxford. His famous work is Cato, based on the last days of Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis.
Mary Astell (1666-1731)
Mary Astell was an English feminist writer and rhetorician. Born in England, she studied in Cambridge and died in London. Her two most well-known books, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, for the Advancement of Their True and Greatest Interest and A Serious Proposal, Part II, outline Astell’s plan to establish a new type of institution for women to assist in providing them with both religious and secular education. She was Catholic.
Aphra Behn (1640-1689)
Aphra Behn was a prolific dramatist of the English Restoration and one of the first English professional female writers. Born in or near Canterbury, in 1663 she visited an English sugar colony on the Suriname River, on the coast east of Venezuela (a region later known as Suriname). During this trip, she is supposed to have met an African slave leader, whose story formed the basis for one of her most famous works, Oroonoko, widely credited as the book that first brought home to England a sense of the horrors of slavery. She was Catholic, a Tory supporter, married to Johan Behn, and recruited as a political spy to Antwerp by Charles II.
Robert Blair (1699-1746)
Robert Blair was a Scottish poet and a graveyard poet, known for his poem The Grave. He was a precursor of Gothic and Romanticism. His topics included the transitory nature of human life, decadence, and death. He married Isabella, daughter of Professor William Law.
John Bunyan (1628-1688)
John Bunyan was an English Christian writer well-known for his book The Pilgrim’s Progress, an allegory and tale of an adventure that exemplifies a spiritual journey to exalt Christian values and moral qualities, written in a style reminiscent of bible verses. He was a Reformed Baptist, born in 1628 in England. His first wife was Margaret Bentley.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
Samuel Butler was an iconoclastic Victorian author. Two of his most famous pieces are the Utopian satire Erewhon and a semi-autobiographical novel published posthumously, The Way of All Flesh. He studied at Cambridge, never married, and polarized burlesque verse in England.
Joseph Butler (1692-1752)
Joseph Butler was an English bishop, theologian, apologist, and philosopher. He is known for his critique of Thomas Hobbes’s egoism and John Locke’s theory of personal identity. He is most famous for his Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel and Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, an important work of Christian apologetics in the history of the controversies over deism.
James Boswell (1740-1795)
James Boswell was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries. His notable work is Life of Johnson. His spouse was Margaret Montgomerie, and he died in London.
Frances Burney (1752-1840)
Frances Burney was an English novelist, diarist, and playwright, born and died in England. Her most important works are Cecile and Eveline, written in epistolary form. She married General Alexandre D’Arblay.