Mrs. Chapone

Hester Chapone née Mulso (27 October 1727, in Twywell, Northamptonshire – 25 December 1801, in Hadwell, Middlesex), was an English writer of conduct books for women. She became associated with the London Blue Stockings Society.

Life

Hester, the daughter of Thomas Mulso (1695–1763), a gentleman farmer, and his wife (died 1747/1748), a daughter of Colonel Thomas, wrote a romance at the age of nine entitled "The Loves of Amoret and Melissa", which earned her mother's disapproval. She was educated more thoroughly than most girls in that period, learning French, Italian and Latin, and began writing regularly and corresponding with other writers at the age of 18.

Her earliest published works were four brief pieces for Samuel Johnson's journal The Rambler in 1750. She was married in 1760 to the solicitor John Chapone (c. 1728–1761), the son of an earlier moral writer, Sarah Chapone (1699–1764), but she was soon widowed. Hester Chapone became associated with the bluestockings, the learned ladies of the Blue Stockings Society, who gathered around Elizabeth Montagu and wrote Letters on the Improvement of the Mind and Miscellanies. She died at Monken Hadley, Middlesex, on 25 December 1801.

Conduct books

The Letters... were written initially for Chapone's 15-year-old niece in 1773, but by 1800 had been through at least 16 editions. A further 12 editions had appeared by 1829, at least one of them a French translation. They focused on encouraging rational understanding through the reading of the Bible, history and literature. The niece was also urged to study book-keeping, household management, botany, geology and astronomy. Only sentimental novels were to be avoided. Mary Wollstonecraft singled the book out as one of few examples of the self-improvement genre that deserved praise.