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Wedgwood's Writings

Here are the writings of Julia Wedgwood. You can read most of them by clicking on their titles. 

There are many more unknown writings of Wedgwood - she published a lot in the Spectator, which had a policy of anonymity. She also published early articles in The Reader, another journal with anonymous content. 

Anonymity was the norm in Victorian journals. The content of some journals has been de-anonymised, but not the Spectator or Reader.

Many of the pieces are here identified as hers for the first time.  See attributions.

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For Wedgwood's letters, see here.​​​

For more on the journals Wedgwood published in, see here.

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Her regular fiction reviews in the Contemporary Review from 1883-86 are not included here.

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Feeling overwhelmed and unsure where to start? See my recommendations!

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1858 Framleigh Hall, a novel. Hurst & Blackett. (anonymous)

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1858 An Old Debt, a novel. Smith, Elder (as 'Florence Dawson'

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June 1860 The Boundaries of Science: A Dialogue. Macmillan's Magazine. (anonymous)

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May 1861 The Boundaries of Science: A Second Dialogue. Macmillan's Magazine. (anonymous)

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November 1862 The Origin of Language: The Imitative Theory and Mr Max Muller's Theory of Phonetic Types. Macmillan's Magazine. (anonymous)

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November 1862 Sir Charles Lyell on the Antiquity of Man. Macmillan's Magazine. (anonymous)

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March 1864 UtilitarianismThe Reader (anonymous)

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May 1864 Büchner’s 'Matter and Force'The Reader (anonymous)

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July 1864 Books on Free-Will and Necessity. The Reader (anonymous)

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March 1864 The Secret of HegelThe Reader (anonymous)

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July 1864 Hegel's Dead SecretThe Reader (anonymous)

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July 1866 The Origin of Language. Westminster Review. (anonymous)

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1866 Preface to Alexander ScottDiscourses. London: Macmillan. (anonymous)

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January 1867 Social Reform in England. Westminster Review. (anonymous)

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1869 Female Suffrage, Considered Chiefly with Regard to its Indirect Results. In Woman's Work and Woman's Culture, ed. Josephine Butler. Macmillan.

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March 1871 Mr Darwin's Descent of Man [second notice]. Spectator. (anonymous)

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May 1870 Thomas Erskine of Linlathen. Contemporary Review. [This is available in Nineteenth-Century Teachers below]

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1870 John Wesley and the Evangelical Reaction of the Eighteenth Century. Macmillan.

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August 1871 Christianity and Positivism. Spectator. (anonymous)

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November 1871 The Natural and the Supernatural. Spectator. (anonymous)

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October 1871 Henry Thomas Buckle. Spectator (anonymous). [in Teachers]

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June 1872 Female Suffrage in its Influence on Married Life. Contemporary Review.

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August 1872 Christianity as a System. Spectator (anonymous).

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November 1872 The Constitution and Course of Nature. Spectator (anonymous) 

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1873 The Political Claims of Women. London: National Society for Women's Suffrage.

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August 1873 The Development of Christianity. Spectator (anonymous)

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November 1873 The Fair HavenSpectator (anonymous)

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April 1874 Hume and the Positive Philosophy. Spectator (anonymous)

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April 1874 Hume and the Utilitarian Ethic. Spectator (anonymous)

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July 1874 Supernatural Religion, first notice, Spectator (anonymous)

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August 1874 Supernatural Religion, second notice, Spectator (anonymous)

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March 1875 Mr Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics, first notice, Spectator (anonymous).

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March 1875 Mr Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics, second notice, Spectator (anonymous).

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November 1875 'The Unseen Universe'. Spectator (anonymous)

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February 1876 The Gnostics of the First Two Centuries. Spectator (anonymous)

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July 1876 Lord Amberley's 'Analysis of Religious Belief'. First notice. Spectator (anonymous)

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July 1876 Lord Amberley's 'Analysis of Religious Belief'. Second notice. Spectator (anonymous) [incidentally, John Russell, Lord Amberley, was Bertrand Russell's father]

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November 1876 What is Christianity? Spectator (anonymous)

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January 1877 Life of Charles Kingsley. Spectator (anonymous) [in Teachers] 

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July 1877 Virgil, as a Link Between the Ancient and the Modern World. Contemporary Review

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September 1877 John M'Leod Campbell. First notice. Spectator (anonymous)

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September 1877 John M'Leod Campbell. Second notice. Spectator (anonymous)

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December 1877 William Law, the English Mystic of the Eighteenth Century. Contemporary Review.

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March 1878 The First Opponent of Christianity. Spectator (anonymous) 

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May 1878 Altruism and Selfishness. Spectator (anonymous) [this prompted the following response from Caroline Haddon, to which Wedgwood responded with her next piece, 'Self and Unself']

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May 1878 Self and Unself. Spectator (anonymous) 

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July 1878 Eternal Punishment and Eternal Hope. Spectator (initialled)

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August 1878 The Negative Stage in the Life of Thought. Spectator (anonymous)

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August 1878 Invalids. Spectator (anonymous) [This is available in Nineteenth-Century Teachers below]

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August 1878 A German Hypatia. Spectator (initialled)

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August 1878 The Drawbacks of the Intellectual Life. Spectator (anonymous) [In Teachers]

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September 1878 The Relation of Memory to Will. Spectator (anonymous) [Also in Teachers]

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September 1878 The Vanity of Men of Letters. Spectator (anonymous) [ditto - in Teachers]

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​September 1878 Apologies. Spectator (anonymous) [in Teachers]

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October 1878. Character and Position. Spectator (anonymous)

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October 1878. Sir Walter Scott and the Romantic Reaction. Contemporary Review

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January 1879. A Dialogue on Fate and Free Will, part one. Spectator (initialled) 

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January 1879. A Dialogue on Fate and Free Will, part two. Spectator (initialled). This two-part dialogue prompted this reply from Shadworth Hodgson, first president of the Aristotelian Society]

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April 1879 Science and Faith. Spectator (anonymous)

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December 1879 The Moral Ideal, part I Spectator (anonymous) 

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December 1879 The Moral Ideal, part II Spectator (anonymous)​ 

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May 1880 'Grievances of Women'. Spectator (anonymous)

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July 1880 Aristotle on Free-will, part I. Spectator (anonymous) 

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July 1880 Aristotle on Free-will, part II. Spectator (anonymous)

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September 1880 The Duke of Argyll on the Unity of Nature. Spectator (anonymous)

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October 1880 The Political Characteristics of Woman. Spectator (anonymous)

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November 1880 ReserveSpectator (anonymous)

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January 1881 Plutarch and the Unconscious Christianity of the First Two Centuries. Contemporary Review

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January 1881 The Duke of Argyll on Nature and the Supernatural. Spectator (anonymous)

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​February 1881 'The Majority'. Spectator (anonymous) [in Teachers]

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February 1881 The Moral Influence of George Eliot. Contemporary Review [in Teachers]

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April 1881 A Study of Carlyle. Contemporary Review [in Teachers]

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April 1881 The Hero as Man of LettersSpectator (anonymous)

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May 1881 Mr Froude as a Biographer. Contemporary Review

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September 1881 Arthur Penrhyn Stanley. Contemporary Review [in Teachers]​

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November 1881 More Biographies of CarlyleSpectator (anonymous)

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December 1881 Youth and Age. Spectator (anonymous) [in Teachers, renamed De Senectute]

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March 1882 Moral Purpose in Fiction. Spectator (anonymous)

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April 1882 A Botanist on EvolutionSpectator (anonymous)

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July 1882 The Relation of History to PoliticsSpectator (anonymous)

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July 1882 Biography. Spectator (anonymous)

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September 1882 Pleasure and Pain. Spectator (anonymous)

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March 1883 Gratitude. Spectator (anonymous)

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May 1883 The Future Life. Spectator (anonymous)

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September 1883 The Misleading Character of Law as an Index to Morals. Spectator (anonymous)

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April 1884 Frederick Denison Maurice. Contemporary Review [in Teachers]

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September 1884 The Treatment of the Insane. Spectator (anonymous) 

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January 1886 Aeschylus and Shakespeare. Contemporary Review. 

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July 1886. Men and WomenSpectator (anonymous)

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August 1887 Count Leo Tolstoi. Contemporary Review [in Teachers]

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August 1887 The Age of WomanSpectator (anonymous)

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December 1887 Charles Darwin [third notice] Spectator (anonymous)

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1888 The Moral Ideal: A Historic Study. Truebner.

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June 1888 Woman and Democracy. Woman's World.

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January 1889 The Cambridge Apostles of 1830. Contemporary Review [in Teachers]

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March 1889 Twelve Years' Trial of the Vivisection ActSpectator (anonymous)

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July 1889 Male and Female Created He Them. Contemporary Review.

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January 1890 The Unfaithful Steward. Contemporary Review [in Teachers]

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April 1890 A Midsummer Night's Dream. Contemporary Review.

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May 1890 Women and Politics. Spectator (anonymous)

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November 1890 The Irish Patriots and Professor Dicey. Murray's Magazine.

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December 1890 Democracy and JusticeSpectator (anonymous)

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January 1891 Euripides at Cambridge. Contemporary Review.

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February 1891 Morals and Politics. National Review.

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September 1891 Laurence Oliphant. Contemporary Review. [in Teachers]

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February 1892 Shakespeare as a HistorianSpectator (anonymous)

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March 1892 Greek Mythology and the Bible. Contemporary Review.

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March 1892 Experimental LegislationSpectator (anonymous)

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April 1892 Fiction and Faith. Contemporary Review.

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August 1892 The Church in DangerSpectator (anonymous)

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October 1892 and 1893 The Message of Israel. Contemporary Review

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March 1893 Shakespere's Julius Caesar. Contemporary Review. 

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1894 The Message of Israel, in the Light of Modern Criticism. London: Isbister.

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April 1895 Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Contemporary Review. [in Teachers]

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October 1895 James Fitzjames Stephen. Contemporary Review. [in Teachers]

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June 1896 A Picture of Childhood. The Bookman.

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1896 Maternal Self-Sacrifice, True and False, parts I and II. Parent’s Review.

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October 1896 The Old Order Changeth. Contemporary Review. [in Teachers]

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January 1897 Ethics and Literature. Contemporary Review.

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August 1897 Ethics and Science. Contemporary Review. [in Teachers]

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October 1897 Richard Holt Hutton. Contemporary Review. [in Teachers]

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1899 A Reminiscence. In The first college open to women: Queen's College, London; memories and records of work done, ed. Mrs Ethel Alec-Tweedie. (Private printing)

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March 1900 John Ruskin. Contemporary Review. [in Teachers]

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1900s Why Am I An Anti-Vivisectionist? pamphlet.

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1903 James Martineau and the Heterodoxy of the PastThe Expositor.

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1907 Expanded second edition of The Moral Ideal, with a new chapter on 'Egypt The Earliest Nation'. (Link to Hathitrust digital edition)

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1909 Nineteenth-Century Teachers and Other Essays.​ Hodder & Stoughton.

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(unfinished at death - completed in 1915 by Charles Herford) The Personal Life of Josiah Wedgwood, the Potter. Macmillan.

This website is created by Alison Stone (Lancaster University). It is a work in progress. Any feedback is welcome. Please make any use of the contents you like in teaching or research.

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