Fast-paced and intimate ... Gibson’s history is primarily social rather than intellectual. The Bluestockings’ personal lives are chronicled in vivid detail ... Still, I wanted more on the ideas that came out of these salons: how these women’s writings related to other literature and culture at the time.
Gibson’s project is to present the bluestockings in their own late-18th-century context: as brilliant thinkers determined to show that women could be every bit as rational, erudite and witty as men ... Her book is full of intelligence, but too tangled in the weeds of dowries and father’s professions. What is really needed is to capture what was so remarkable about these women. What was it like to be in the room with them? I longed for a more vivacious chronicler such as Katherine Rundell or Francesca Wade.
Deftly interwoven ... Gibson’s own balancing act, skilfully managed, is to highlight the extraordinary place these women carved out for themselves against the odds in 18th-century society, without glossing over aspects less congenial to 21st-century readers. It is often tempting to uncritically champion pioneering women in history with a sort of proto-girlboss feminism. Bluestockings is much more sophisticated stuff than this, and all the richer for it.
Engaging and elegantly written ... While at times it feels like the detailed focus on individuals is an opportunity for Gibson to cram in as much of her (thorough) research as possible, it can also be very effective.
Susannah Gibson has put Johnson at the margins and women at the center in The Bluestockings, a vivid and absorbing series of interwoven biographies of some of the era’s most fascinating and accomplished females ... Among the many pleasures of The Bluestockings is the reminder that history doesn’t consist of the churning of vast impersonal forces but has at its heart the personalities and ambitions of singular men and women. Greatness too may begin in actions as small as picking up a pen or inviting a few smart people around for tea.
Meticulously researched and beautifully written ... Consistently enlightening and insightful, The Bluestockings should be widely read by both women and men.
The author’s engaging account honors the determination and charm with which her subjects seized as much freedom as society would allow them. Vivid popular history illuminating some neglected feminist pioneers.
