Mary Pilkington’s Anonymous or Unattributed Periodical Contributions to The Lady’s Monthly Museum
Cataloguing Pilkington’s Anonymous Periodical Contributions to The Lady’s Monthly Museum: "Fitzmaurice" and "Highland Characters"
By: Belle Eist
Preserved in William Upcott’s “Eminent Women” album, Pilkington’s October 1810 Letter to Charles Sharpe names two of her anonymous periodical contributions to The Lady’s Monthly Museum. Following a period of debilitating illness, both physical and “Nervous,” Pilkington’s letter politely apologizes for her reduced literary and editorial contributions (Mary Pilkington to Charles Lamborn, NCCO). Though she cannot “entirely recollect which subject formed the last numbers [she] had the pleasure of contributing to,” she is certain that “Fitzmaurice & Highland Characters were amongst my compositions” (Pilkington to Sharpe). The following bibliographic catalogue explores the publication history of “Fitzmaurice” and “Highland Characters” in The Lady’s Monthly Museum. Because so many of Pilkington’s contributions to the Museum were anonymous, investigating these two works that can be contextually contributed to her is useful in building a more comprehensive understanding and record of her periodical writing.
Catalogue Notes:
If a contribution was published more than once under the same volume, title, and source location, several part-publications may be listed together and will be separated by a semicolon.
Each record of a part-publication restates the work’s title, as it was typed in that issue of the periodical, in order to account for occasional title changes.
The "Issue" field records the particular way a periodical volume represented their numbers and/or dates of issue.
Pilkington’s contributions are listed chronologically (by their first appearance in the periodical).
The “Notes” section of each title record primarily functions to inform the reader if the title was continued or concluded after that issue.
Catalogue
Work: “Highland Characters; or, the Communicative Tourist.”
Author: Mary Pilkington
Periodical: The Lady’s Monthly Museum
Publishers: Ann Vernor (died 1807); Thomas Hood (died 1811); Charles Sharpe
Author Attribution: Anonymous
Continuing Contribution: November 1808 – May 1810
Part-Publications of Title:
Title: Highland Characters; or, the Communicative Tourist.
Periodical: The Lady’s Monthly Museum
Volume: 5
Issue: November, 1808
Source: Google Books (https://www.google.ca/books/edition/The_Lady_s_Monthly_Museum/2IlFAQAAMAAJ)
Location (Pages): 230-235
Notes: First appearance of title; continuing
—
Title: Highland Characters; or, the Communicative Tourist.
Periodical: The Lady’s Monthly Museum
Volume: 6
Issues: April, 1809; May, 1809
Source: Google Books (https://www.google.ca/books/edition/%20The_Lady_s_Monthly_Museum/nolFAQAAMAAJ)
Location (Pages): 189-199; 233-241
Notes: Continuing
—
Title: Highland Characters; or, the Communicative Tourist.
Periodical: The Lady’s Monthly Museum
Volume: 7
Issue: July, 1809
Source: Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/sim_ladies-museum_1809-07_7)
Location (Pages): 10-13
Notes: Continuing
—
Title: Highland Characters; or, the Communicative Tourist.
Periodical: The Lady’s Monthly Museum
Volume: 7
Issue: August, 1809
Source: Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/sim_ladies-museum_1809-08_7)
Location (Pages): 65-75
Notes: Continuing
—
Title: Highland Characters; or, the Communicative Tourist.
Periodical: The Lady’s Monthly Museum
Volume: 7
Issue: September, 1809
Source: Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/sim_ladies-museum_1809-09_7)
Location (Pages): 121-132
Notes: Continuing
—
Title: Highland Characters; or, the Communicative Tourist.
Periodical: The Lady’s Monthly Museum
Volume: 7
Issue: November, 1809
Source: Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/sim_ladies-museum_1809-11_7)
Location (Pages): 233-242
Notes: Continuing
—
Title: Highland Characters; or, the Communicative Tourist.
Periodical: The Lady’s Monthly Museum
Volume: 7
Issue: December, 1809
Source: Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/sim_ladies-museum_1809-12_7)
Location (Pages): 305-315
Notes: Continuing
—
Title: Highland Characters; or, the Communicative Tourist.
Periodical: The Lady’s Monthly Museum
Volume: 8
Issue: January, 1810
Source: Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/sim_ladies-museum_1810-01_8)
Location (Pages): 30-43
Notes: Continuing. Page 30 notes that this is the first publication of “Highland Characters” in the eighth volume: “(Continued from Vol. VII. page 315.)”
—
Title: Highland Characters; or, the Communicative Tourist.
Periodical: The Lady’s Monthly Museum
Volume: 8
Issue: February, 1810
Source: Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/sim_ladies-museum_1810-02_8)
Location (Pages): 64-71
Notes: Continuing
—
Title: Highland Characters; or, the Communicative Tourist.
Periodical: The Lady’s Monthly Museum
Volume: 8
Issue: March, 1810
Source: Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/sim_ladies-museum_1810-03_8)
Location (Pages): 155-164
Notes: Continuing
—
Title: Highland Characters; or, the Communicative Tourist.
Periodical: The Lady’s Monthly Museum
Volume: 8
Issue: April, 1810
Source: Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/sim_ladies-museum_1810-04_8)
Location (Pages): 216-225
Notes: Continuing; final page states “(To be concluded in our next.)” (225).
—
Title: Highland Characters; or, the Communicative Tourist.
Periodical: The Lady’s Monthly Museum
Volume: 8
Issue: May, 1810
Source: Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/sim_ladies-museum_1810-05_8)
Location (Pages): 253-261
Notes: Concluded
Work: “Fitzmaurice: An Hibernian Tale.”
Author: Mary Pilkington
Periodical: The Lady’s Monthly Museum
Publishers: Ann Vernor (died 1807); Thomas Hood (died 1811); Charles Sharpe
Author Attribution: Anonymous
Continuing Contribution: March 1810 – July 1810*
Part-Publications of Title:
Title: Fitzmaurice: An Hibernian Tale.
Periodical: The Lady’s Monthly Museum
Volume: 8
Issue: March, 1810
Source: Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/sim_ladies-museum_1810-03_8)
Location (Pages): 122-131
Notes: First appearance of title; continuing
—
Title: Fitzmaurice: An Hibernian Tale.
Periodical: The Lady’s Monthly Museum
Volume: 8
Issue: April, 1810
Source: Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/sim_ladies-museum_1810-04_8)
Location (Pages): 187-192
Notes: Continuing
—
Title: Fitzmaurice: An Hibernian Tale.
Periodical: The Lady’s Monthly Museum
Volume: 8
Issue: May, 1810
Source: Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/sim_ladies-museum_1810-05_8)
Location (Pages): 261-274
Notes: Continuing
—
Title: Fitzmaurice: An Hibernian Tale.
Periodical: The Lady’s Monthly Museum
Volume: 8
Issue: June, 1810
Source: Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/sim_ladies-museum_1810-06_8)
Location (Pages): 333-337
Notes: Continuing
—
Title: Fitzmaurice: An Hibernian Tale.
Periodical: The Lady’s Monthly Museum
Volume: 8
Issue: July, 1810
Sources: Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/sim_ladies-museum_1810-06_8); Google Books (https://www.google.ca/books/edition/The_Lady_s_Monthly_Museum_Or_Polite_Repo/kIFPAQAAMAAJ); Hathi Trust Digital Library (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.74726179)
Location (Pages): 13-20
Notes: Though this section finishes with, “To be continued,” “Fitzmaurice” does not seem to reappear in any following 1810 or 1811 issues.
