When Anna Letitia Barbauld popularised the ‘New Walk’ with Lessons for Children, sparking the creation of the genre of the conversational primer, she united women with significantly different educational goals. Charles Lamb misogynistically excoriated ‘the cursed Barbauld crew’ for writing books ‘in the shape of knowledge’, identifying Anna Letitia Barbauld and Sarah Trimmer as key criminals in this apparent travesty. Unnamed in Lamb’s tirade, but almost certainly present in this ‘crew’, was Lady Ellenor Fenn, whose works were sold under at least eight pseudonyms revolving around the names ‘Lovechild’ and ‘Teachwell’. Barbauld, Trimmer and Fenn all published rational educations for young children packaged as home-based conversations directed by an affectionate Mamma. Indeed, Trimmer and Fenn paid homage to Lessons for Children in their prefaces, acknowledging Barbauld as their literary progenitor in An Easy Introduction to Nature (1780) and Cobwebs to Catch Flies (1783), respectively. Yet these women’s pedagogical goals and literary contributions differed vastly. Barbauld was a liberal Arian Presbyterian and a political radical who wrote political polemics, devotional essays, poems and children’s literature, and was active in manuscript and print cultures. Unconventionally, Barbauld’s Lessons omits references to God, reflecting her belief that strict doctrine and liturgies are not central to faith. Trimmer’s educational agenda, by contrast, is contextualised by her devotion to the Church of England and political conservatism. An Arminian-leaning orthodox Anglican, Trimmer used An Easy Introduction to lay the groundwork for her nationally aimed religious education programme. She explicitly framed later editions of An Easy Introduction as part of an induction into Anglican faith. Fenn’s Cobwebs to Catch Flies, meanwhile, ‘recruits mothers to take control of their children’s early reading in the nursery’. Like a strand of its eponymous web, Cobwebs functions as a part of Fenn’s broader teaching schemes, which encompassed educational games and toys. Glancing at the women’s philosophical allegiances side by side, one feels like exclaiming alongside Barbauld, ‘There is no bond of union among literary women.’

Though there is truth in accusations that a simplistic grouping of ‘sister authors for the young […] collapses together […] liberal compromises [… and] deep-seated conservatism’, Barbauld, Trimmer and Fenn can be considered together as popular authors of conversational primers.