Henrietta Maria Bowdler

Henrietta Maria Bowdler (1754-1830) was a member of one of Bath’s most prominent literary families. Her mother, Elizabeth Stuart (1717?-97), second daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Cotton, married Thomas Bowdler in 1742 and settled at Ashley, a country estate near Bath. Henrietta, her sister Jane (1743-84), and brothers John (1746-1823) and Thomas (1754-1825), were all raised in a strictly pious Anglican home, and it would show in their lives and writings. Jane Bowdler gained considerable acclaim for her posthumous publication, Poems and Essays (2 vols., 1786), which went through sixteen editions by 1830. Another work, Practical observations on the Revelations of St. John, written in the year 1775 (Bath, 1800), may have been by Jane, or possibly her mother, Elizabeth. Henrietta authored Sermons on the Doctrines and Duties of Christianity (1804), which went through some forty editions in her lifetime; Hymns on Various Subjects: extracted from the Psalms (1806); Pen Tamar, or, The History of an Old Maid (1830), a posthumous novel; and Essay on the Proper Employment of Time, Talents, Fortune, &c. (1837).  She also edited the popular volume, Fragments in Prose and Verse, by a Young Lady, lately deceased.  With Some Account of her Life and Character (1808), by Elizabeth Smith (1776-1806). Henrietta’s two brothers were also authors. John Bowdler was best known for Reform or Ruin! (1795), which went through eight editions by 1797. Thomas Bowdler may be the most famous of all the siblings, gaining considerable notoriety with his publication of The Family Shakespeare (10 vols., 1818).  Though popular with many readers, Bowdler’s Shakespeare was severely attacked by critics for his prudish censorship of Shakespeare's language, giving rise to the pejorative term “to bowdlerize.” In 1757, Basil, the 6th Earl of Denbigh (1719-1800), married Mary (d. 1782), the third daughter of Sir John Cotton and sister to Henrietta Bowdler’s mother, Elizabeth.