SOURCE: Demers, Patricia. “‘That Which before Us Lies in Daily Life’: Social Discourse.” In The World of Hannah More, pp. 76-98. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1996.

In the following excerpt, Demers studies the essays of Hannah More, finding that they stress the importance of education, living a moral and practical life, refraining from frivolity, and fulfilling the feminine role.

To attempt to compress more than three decades of More's essay writing in a single chapter may seem both trivializing and impossible. The authorial voice does become more resonant, moving from the neophyte's offer of “a few remarks on such circumstances as seemed to her susceptible of some improvement, and on such subjects as she imagined were particularly interesting to young ladies”¹ to the authoritative clarion call to “British ladies” and “what they themselves might be if all their talents and unrivalled opportunities were turned to the best...