A governess in the age of Jane Austen : the journals and letters of Agnes Porter

Abstract

We only know a surprisingly small number of eighteenth-century women as personalities. This is true, in particular, of women who had to work for their living. Which is why the survival of the letters and journals of Miss Ann Porter, dating from 1788 to 1814, constitutes an unusually important find. Miss Porter, the daughter of a Church of England clergyman, was born in 1752 with brains but not looks or wealth. Although she would have liked to marry, her various hopes of matrimony ended in disappointment. She therefore decided to earn her living as a governess, working principally in teaching the daughters of the second Earl of Ilchester. Ann Foster was neither morbidly religious, as were many of her Victorian successors, nor did she spend her time dwelling on the unfairness of her situation. She emerges as an intelligent , warm and likeable woman ready to make the best of her lot. Joanna Martin has provided a substantial introduction which sets Miss Porter in her historical context, A governess in the age of Jane Austen is a detailed, and very early, portrait of a woman entering a profession.

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