Hannah More and Dominican Values

Extract

Though relatively unknown to twentieth-first-century students of literature, Hannah More was one of the most prolific and most read literary and religious figures of her day. Born February 2, 1745, near Bristol, she was educated by her schoolmaster father and began writing poetry and drama at an early age. On a visit to London in the 1770’s, she came to the attention of David Garrick, who introduced her to many of the leading personalities of the day, including Dr. Samuel Johnson. She continued her seasonal visits to London but became increasingly dissatisfied with its worldliness and frivolity. In 1789, at the urging of William Wilberforce, she began a school in Cheddar, one of twelve that eventually dotted the Mendip Hills in the west of England. The primary object of study was the Bible; her primary purpose, to improve the moral conduct of both the children and the adults, most of whom could not even read. She spent the rest of her life writing tracts, pamphlets, and, at least one novel — all of them moral, if not religious, in nature. She died in 1833 in Clifton, then a suburb of Bristol.