The Letters

Abstract

Abstract This edition offers 217 letters to and from Catharine Macaulay’s correspondents. Each correspondent is given a brief biographical introduction, including a short account of Macaulay’s relationship with the correspondent, and the historical circumstances of the epistolary exchange. The letters provide a unique snapshot of the personal relationships and wider friendships of a woman who was at the center of radical London society during the second half of the eighteenth century. Her correspondents extend from London to America and France and reveal how, for a period of nearly thirty years, Macaulay was recognized as one of the foremost advocates of the universal rights of mankind and as an irrepressible voice defending the political liberties that the American and French revolutions attempted to secure.