LHMP #496 Ingrassia 1998 Fashioning Female Authorship in Eliza Haywood’s ‘The Tea-Table’

This article looks at contrasting concepts of “woman writer” and “professional author” in the 18th century, using the lens of Eliza Haywood’s writing, and specifically the discussions around writing and authorship contained in her work The Tea-Table. In the early 18th century, resistance to the idea of women as “writers” (which had influenced many women to circulate their work only in manuscript among private social circles) was shifting to resistance specifically to women as professional writers, i.e., ones who aspired to make a living at it. The feeling (other than masculine jealousy) was that for a woman to become the sort of public figure that came from professional authorship was immodest and destructive of domestic happiness.

Haywood’s 1725 The Tea-Table: or, A Conversation between some Polite Persons of Both Sexes at a Lady’s Visiting Day challenges these ideas, showing a (fictional) literary circle enthusiastically sharing and commenting on each others’ literary output. The work included a number of the metafictional works (all written by Haywood, of course). The Tea-Table was intended to be a periodical, but was not continued. Haywood not only wrote professionally, but had her own print shop and engaged in the hands-on work of publishing and distributing her work.

The Tea-Table challenges the idea that a female domestic space (the “tea table”) concerns itself only with trivial gossip, instead creating a vision of a supportive female-centered community (though it doesn’t entirely exclude men, as long as they align with the interests of the women) focused on literature. Her fictional community is not simply “female centered” but is specifically one that valorizes and prioritizes connections between women across a wide range of manifestations. They comment on how society expects them to spend their time competing and criticizing other women and then reject those activities.

There are implications—those never outright admissions—of female romantic partnerships, or simply a rejection of heterosexuality, among the women. The hostess is described as having arranged her life so as to be able to avoid male bonds. She has a “long intimacy” with another member of the circle, and in the final episode of the story, she receives a letter from a long-absent female friend who will soon be returning—new which transforms her with happiness. One of the poems shared is a eulogy written by one woman on the death of her female companion.  All these connections are taken as expected and usual by the women of the circle.

The narrative voice praises the beauty of women at the table, and the only positive intimate relationships in the narrative are between women, while the literature they share with each other touches on the hazards of being female in society: marital unhappiness, betrayal by men. They have carried these texts on them, not only to share, but to read for their own sake, and to receive suggestions for improvement or polishing. Their reading is a collaborative experience, repeating favorite passages, and overlapping in their commentary.

When the tea-table conversation is interrupted by the arrival of a woman who only wants to discuss fashion and gossip, the disruption and rejection is clear. And the cooperation and reciprocity of the literary sharing is specifically contrasted with the competitive air of male writers, desperate for attention.

Throughout the work, casually references and citations demonstrate Haywood’s familiarity not only with the standard literary canon, but with the publishing community of her day. Yet Haywood’s role itself—the female professional author—is not represented in The Tea-Table. Her characters are all writers, but not authors, sharing manuscript works, not published texts.