Mrs. Howe[s]

Mrs. Howe[s] (fl. 1786-88) appears on imprints as How, Howes, Hawes, all from No. 15, Charles-Street, Wells-Street, near Middlesex Hospital and Oxford Market, London. She also worked as a green grocer and tallow chandler. For a brief period in the 1780s she added bookselling to her list of occupations, selling exclusively works by her pastor, the controversial and highly charismatic antinomian preacher, William Huntington (1745-1815).  She appears on 23 imprints between 1786 and 1788, of which 21 were works by Huntington. She does not appear in Lowndes’ 1786 London Directory or the 1791 UBD from the Charles Street address. Whether she had moved elsewhere, retired, or died is not known. On all of Howes' 23 imprints, she was joined by Garnet Terry, Huntington's primary publisher and seller; she also appears on two title pages with a printer, Thomas Bensley, and two booksellers, a Mr. Baker of Oxford Street and a Mr. Davidson of Tower Hill, all three men, like Terry and Howes, devoted followers of Huntington. Besides Mrs. Bull, Howes sold Elizabeth Morton's controversial work, The Daughter's Defence of her Father; or, An Answer to the letter addressed to Mr. Huntington, written by Madame de Mara Flora [a play upon Huntington's antagonist in the press at that time, Maria de Fleury], and Co. Containing critical remarks on that performance, and a defence of the "Modern plasterer detected'' (1788), the "father" being Huntington himself. Mrs. Howes was a member of one of Huntington's chapels, probably his Providence Chapel, for she appears in his Epistles on Faith (c. 1787) in reference to another woman writer and follower of Huntington, a Mrs. Bull, whose sole composition, Zion's Ornaments and Offerings. The Author Unknown, and yet well known. With a recommendatory preface, &c. By Wm Huntington, S.S., was sold by Howes in 1787.

In one of Huntington’s letters to Elizabeth Morton in Epistles on Faith (pp. 455-60), he tells the story of Mrs. Bull. Huntington had recently published Zion's Ornaments shortly before Bull's death, which occurred not long before Huntington's letter to Morton, which was composed c. June 1787.  Bull died in late July or early August of that year, after giving birth to twins. Huntington's dedicatory epistle to Zion’s Ornaments is dated May 17, 1787, at which time Mrs. Bull was still alive and pregnant. Unfortunately, because of her derelict husband, Charles Bull, she was also penniless. Huntington provided Morton with a narrative of Mrs. Bull's finals days, noting that she was kindly taken in by Mrs. Howes at her Charles Street address, which was also Howes' residence. Bull’s Preface to her volume was signed “S—L--,” which has resulted in her work being unattributed to her in library catalogues ever since, despite Huntington's identification of her in his letter. Huntington received two letters from Charles Bull, her husband, after his wife's demise at Mrs. Howes, feigning repentance on his part, a repentance Huntington did not accept. In her next letter to Huntington, Morton expressed sadness over Mrs. Bull’s fate and wished for Huntington to send her the text of the sermon at Providence Chapel to which Bull had attributed her soul's deliverance through the unfolding of divine grace upon her. Huntington's last letter to Mrs. Bull, sometime in July 1787, declared her ready to stand on her alone without her need of his tutorials, but her death precluded any further letters.  Though her career was very short, Mrs. Howe nevertheless joins Tace Sowle, a Quaker, and Mary Lewis, a Moravian, as women printers and booksellers who were instrumental in propagating important texts relating to a particular dissenting sect, in this case, the Antinomian chapels belonging to William Huntington and his followers.