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An Unfortunate Mother's Advice to Her Absent Daughters
image id: ps_cps_cd7_101

Lady Sarah Pennington (d. 1783)
An Unfortunate Mother's Advice to Her Absent Daughters
London: Published by G. Nicholson … Sold by Symonds [et al.], September 21, 1803
NYPL, The Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle

Lady Sarah Pennington's jealous husband forced her into a legal separation. She wrote this and other works partly to vindicate her reputation, insisting that although she may have acted coquettishly, she had been a faithful wife. Her advice to her daughters is very much of its time: the inward instruction and approval of their own consciences was not enough, as she had learned to her cost; "the public voice" also "should be regarded."

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