Lucy Aikin


Lucy Aikin was an English historical writer, biographer and correspondent. She also published under pseudonyms such as Mary Godolphin. Her literary-minded family included her aunt Anna Laetitia Barbauld, a writer of poetry, essays and children's books.

Early life

Born at Warrington in 1781, Aikin was the fourth child of a physician, John Aikin, and his wife, Martha Jennings. Theirs was a literary family of prominent Unitarians. Lucy's father was also a historian, and her grandfather, likewise called John Aikin, was a Unitarian scholar and theological tutor, closely associated with Warrington Academy. Lucy's aunt was Anna Laetitia Barbauld, a prominent children's writer, her brother Arthur Aikin was a chemist, mineralogist and scientific writer, and their brother Charles Rochemont was adopted by Barbauld and became a doctor and chemist. Another brother, the architect Edmund Aikin, also wrote influential works about architecture.
She lived with her parents in Great Yarmouth and Stoke Newington until the death of her father in 1822, when she moved to Hampstead, where, apart from a short interval in Wimbledon, she spent the remainder of her life.
Apart from a brief attendance at a day school in Yarmouth, Aikin was educated largely by her father and her aunt, an early critic of the education system. She "read widely in English, French, Italian, and Latin literature and history," began publishing for magazines at the age of 17, and at an early age assisted her father as an editor of his writings.

Works

Aikin's works delve into the artistic, social, and literary sides of her period rather than its religious, military or parliamentary history.
In 1810 appeared her first considerable work, Epistles on Women, Exemplifying their Character and Condition in Various Ages and Nations, with Miscellaneous Poems, and in 1814 her only work of fiction, entitled Lorimer, a Tale. Those were just early efforts, but her reputation was gained wholly by historical works published between 1818 and 1843: Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth ; Memoirs of the Court of James I. ; Memoirs of the Court of Charles I. ; and the Life of Addison. The last of these, containing many letters of Addison never before published, was the subject of an essay by Macaulay, who while praising Aikin's other works, and especially her Memoirs of the Court of James I, observed that she was "far more at home among the ruffs and peaked beards of Theobalds than among the steenkirks and flowing periwigs which surrounded Queen Anne's tea table at Hampton."
Of her other memoirs, she herself wrote on completing her Charles I, "I am resolved against proceeding farther with English sovereigns. Charles II is no theme for me: it would make me condemn my species." Aikin also wrote a life of her father, and of her aunt, Mrs Barbauld, and many minor pieces.
Like Barbauld, Aikin was interested in early education, and as such published several works to assist young readers: Poetry for Children: Consisting of Short Pieces to be Committed to Memory, Juvenile Correspondence or Letters, Designed as Examples of the Epistolary Style, for Children of Both Sexes, An English Lesson Book, for the Junior Classes, and The Acts of Life: of Providing Food, of Providing Clothing, of Providing Shelter. Under the pseudonym Mary Godolphin, Aikin also contributed as an editor to versions of Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson, Aesop's Fables, Evenings at Home, and Sandford and Merton written "in Words of One Syllable".

Letters and translations

Aikin's conversational powers were remarkable, and she was a graceful and graphic letter writer. Her letters to her relatives and intimate friends showed her relish for society, and were full of wit and lively anecdotes of distinguished literary persons. She maintained for almost 16 years a graver correspondence with the Rev. Dr William Ellery Channing, an American Unitarian theologian in Boston, on religion, philosophy, politics, and literature.
Aikin's letters were known for criticizing leaders on both sides of the Atlantic, and for criticisms of various authors, male and female. Her letters also showed an appreciation for classic and contemporary literature.
Aikin also translated French texts: Louis Francois Jauffret's The Travels of Rolando, and Jean Gaspard Hess's The Life of Ulrich Zwingli, on a leader of the Reformation in Switzerland.

Personal life

Aikin never married or had children. She lived her whole life with family, notably her parents and her niece, although she did briefly live with her nephew in London.
Politically Aikin was a staunch feminist, religiously a Unitarian.

Death and legacy

Lucy Aikin died of influenza in 1864 in Hampstead, then just north of London, where she had lived for 40 years. At her time of death, Aikin had less than €9,000. Her niece Anna Letitia Le Breton took over her literary legacy. Aikin's Memoirs, Miscellanies, and Letters were published in 1864, as was an edited version of her correspondence with Channing ten years later.

Selected works