Hasell, Elizabeth Julia (1830-1887)

Title

Elizabeth Julia Hasell

Author

Hasell, Elizabeth Julia (1830-1887)

Date

1830-1887

Place of origin

Penrith

Country of origin

Cumbria

England, United Kingdom

Language

English

Profession

Periodical contributor

Blackwood's Magazine (1859-88)
Athenaeum (Weekly)
Monthly Packet of Evening News
St. Paul Magazine

Reviewer

Literary critic

Specialised in classical and southern European literature

Author in the Blackwood's Foreign Classics for English Readers series, volumes on Calderon and Tasso (1877)

Translator

Biographical details

Born in Cumbria near Penrith, Elizabeth Julia Hassell (1830-87) was the daughter of the lord and lady of the manors of Dacre and Soulby. She was educated at home and excelled at languages, teaching herself Latin, Greek, Spanish and Portuguese. According to "Pages from the Story of My Childhood", an autobiographical sketch published in 1876 in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (Maga), she began writing at an early age. [...] She continued to write throughout her youth, penning a long narrative poem about a knight buried in the nearby Dacre Church. [...] Hassell began working as a literary critic in about 1858, when she began contributing essays to Maga and to the Quarterly Review. [...] She made a reputation as a critic of classical and southern European literature, and she was invited to contribute the volumes on Calderon and Tasso (both 1877) to Blackwood's Foreign Classics for English Readers series. [...] She published essays on the elegy, the sonnet and the ode. In addition to her critical and translating work, she was evidently a tireless educator in the Lake District, walking great distances to lead classes and deliver lectures until her death in 1887.

A serious occupation : literary criticism by Victorian women writers, edited by Solveig C. Robinson (Peterborough, Ont. :Broadview, 2003), pp. 208-209.

While the work of a number of women who contributed to Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine has received critical attention, that of Elizabeth Julia Hasell has not. Yet Hasell was a frequent contributor from 1859 until 1888. The explanation for this neglect lies in the publisher's policy of maintaining anonymity of contributors, a policy that worked both for and against Hasell and other women contributors: anonymity allowed her to write on topics normally thought to be the purview of men, but it also seemed to impact her relationship with publisher John Blackwood and his nephew William. Hasell's unpublished letters to the Blackwoods reveal some of the frustrations she experienced in getting her work accepted (and even getting timely responses to her submissions) and illustrate some of the restrictions placed on her submissions. The letters also reveal the strategies Hasell employed to prompt responses from the Blackwoods and gain their approval to write on a wide range of topics, allowing her to make use of her erudition and talent to influence public opinion through her writing.

J. Wilkes - Elizabeth Julia Hasell and Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.

Selected publications

(1867) ‘Dante in English Terza Rima’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, June 1867, pp. 736–55.

(1867) Tasso: Foreign Classics for English Readers edited by Mrs Oliphant. Edinburgh. Blackwood.
(1867) Calderon:: Foreign Classics for English Readers edited by Mrs Oliphant. Edinburgh. Blackwood.