List of early-modern women playwrights (UK)

This literature-related list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

This is a chronological list of women playwrights who were active in the United Kingdom before approximately 1800, with a brief indication of productivity. (NB. Drama is the focus of this list, though many of these writers worked in more than one genre.)

Aphra Behn, Restoration playwright, by Mary Beale

Playwrights

• Katherine of Sutton (abbess 1358–1376): rewrote several mystery plays
• Jane Lumley (1537–1578): first translator of Euripides into English
• Mary Sidney Herbert (1561–1621): translated one play
• Elizabeth Cary (1585–1639): wrote first original play in English by a woman
• Mary Wroth (1587–1652): primarily a poet; one drama extant
• Jane Cavendish (1620/21–1669): co-authored a pastoral masque with her sister, Elizabeth Egerton
• Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673): author of closet dramas
• Elizabeth Egerton (1626–1663): co-authored a pastoral masque with her sister, Jane Cavendish
• Katherine Philips (1631–1664): mainly a poet; author of two plays (one unfinished)
• Aphra Behn (1640–1689): playwright
• Elizabeth Polwheele (c. 1651 – c. 1691): two plays extant
• Anne Finch (1661–1720): primarily a poet; author of verse dramas
• Frances Boothby (fl. 1669–1670): author of the first original play by a woman to be produced in London
• Delarivier Manley (1663 or c. 1670–1724): playwright
• Mary Pix (1666–1709): playwright
• Susannah Centlivre (c. 1667–1723): playwright
• Mary Davys (1674–1732): novelist; produced one play; had another published
• Penelope Aubin (c. 1679 – c. 1731): primarily a novelist; had one play produced
• Catherine Trotter (1679–1749): playwright
• Jane Wiseman (fl. c. 1682–1717): author of one produced play
• Mary Wortley Montagu (c. 1689–1762): wrote primarily in other genres
• Eliza Haywood (1693–1756): playwright; wrote primarily in other genres
• Catherine Clive (1711–1785): actress; wrote farces with some success
• Charlotte Charke (1713–1760): playwright/actress/manager
• Charlotte Lennox (1720–1804): wrote primarily in other genres; two plays (one an adaptation)
• Frances Brooke (1723–1789): primarily a novelist; worked in comic opera
• Frances Sheridan (1724–1766): playwright
• Elizabeth Griffith (c. 1727–1793): playwright
• Charlotte Lennox (c. 1727–1804): playwright; primarily a novelist
• Dorothea Celesia (baptised 1738, died 1790): translated Voltaire's Tancrède
• Hannah Cowley (1743–1809): playwright and poet
• Hannah More (1745–1833): playwright; published in many genres
• Mary Bowes (1749–1800): published one play
• Charlotte Turner Smith (1749–1806): novelist and poet; one comedy attributed to her
• Elizabeth Craven (1750–1828): writer of light plays
• Sophia Lee (1750–1824): playwright.
• Frances Burney (1752–1840): primarily a novelist; author of several plays, only one produced in her lifetime
• Elizabeth Inchbald (1753–1821): playwright
• Ann Yearsley (c. 1753 – 1806): primarily a poet; produced and published one play
• Hannah Brand (1754–1821): published playwright
• Harriet Lee (1757–1851): playwright
• Mary Robinson (1757–1800): wrote primarily in other genres; one play produced
• Jane West (1758–1852): wrote primarily in other genres
• Anne Plumptre (1760–1818): wrote primarily in other genres; translated dramas
• Elizabeth Kemble (1761–1836): known for acting
• Mariana Starke (1761/2–1838): author of four plays, not all produced; mainly a travel writer
• Joanna Baillie (1762–1851): prolific playwright
• Fanny Robertson (1765-1855): actor-manager, author of at least two plays.
• Barbarina Brand (1768–1854): author of four published plays, one produced
• Frances Burney (1776–1828): published two unproduced tragedies
• Jane Porter (1776–1850): two plays
• Anna Ross, (born 1773); comic opera
• Mary Russell Mitford (1787–1855): playwright
• Felicia Hemans (1793–1835): primarily a poet; some verse drama
• Catherine Gore (1799–1861): eleven plays produced
• Catherine Crowe (1800–1876): primarily a fiction writer; two plays, one produced
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861): primarily a poet; one closet drama and one translation
• Elizabeth Polack (active 1830–1838): author of five plays, three surviving

See also

• List of early-modern women poets (UK)
• Category:Women dramatists and playwrights
• List of playwrights
• List of playwrights by nationality and date of birth
• List of women writers
• Lists of writers
• Women's writing in English

References

• Blain, Virginia, et al., eds. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1990.
• Buck, Claire, ed.The Bloomsbury Guide to Women's Literature. Prentice Hall, 1992.
• Chadwyck-Healey Database of English Prose Drama (through 1750) and (1750–1939)
• Greer, Germaine, ed. Kissing the Rod: an anthology of seventeenth-century women's verse. Farrar Staus Giroux, 1988.
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: OUP, 2004.
• Todd, Janet, ed. British Women Writers: a critical reference guide. London: Routledge, 1989.

External links

• Bibliography of Early Modern Women Writers That Are In Print
• British Women Playwrights around 1800
• The Brown University Women Writers Project
• A Celebration of Women Writers
• Emory Women Writers Resource Project
• Images of Early Modern, 20th and 21st Century British Female Playwrights
• List of biographical dictionaries, with a focus on 17thc women writers
• London Theater People - 1660–1800
• Luminarium
• The Perdita Project
• The Restoration Comedy Project
• Romantic Circles
• Women Romantic-Era Writers
• The Women Writers Archive: Early Modern Women Writers Online