Bulstrode

Edmund Burke called Mrs Delany (née Mary Granville, 1700–1788) ‘the highest bred woman in the world, and the woman of fashion of all ages’.Quoted in Ruth Hayden, Mrs Delany and her Flower Collages, 2nd edn (London: British Museum Press, 1992), 129, citing what Dr Johnson heard Edmund Burke say. See also Lady Llanover, ed., The Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs Delany, 6 vols (London: Bentley, 1861–2), V, 12. Already recognized in her own times, she continued to attract admirers after Lady Llanover brought out a complete ‘autobiography and correspondence’ in the...

In Mrs. Delany’s unpublished novella, Marianna, the title character experiences trials and tribulations befitting an eighteenth-century heroine. After venturing too far down the garden path she becomes lost and eventually finds herself in a cave by the sea. She is captured by pirates and taken aboard their ship, where she meets a mysterious but handsome stranger. Although all ends...