Dennis was a classical scholar and novelist, who wrote the first gothic novel published in Cornwall. The daughter of a Trembath farmer, she was mentored by Davies Gilbert, the Cornish scholar and politician, and at his suggestion spent two years as the governess to the Wedgewood family in Cobham, Surrey. Dennis understood some of the major intellectual arguments and scientific innovations in her generation, travelled within the UK, and met influential individuals.
Although it was not unusual for a Cornish farmer's daughter to read novels and poetry, Dennis, remarkably, wrote one. Her epistolary novel, Sophia St. Clare, published in 1806, which was the first gothic novel to be written in Cornwall. She died in 1809 and is buried at Porthcurno. See Charlotte MacKenzie's chapters “‘Unequal to the Situation’, the Wedgwood’s governess Thomasin Dennis” and ‘The gothic novelist Thomasin Dennis’ in her 2020 book Women Writers and Georgian Cornwall.
Early life and Education
Born in 1770, Dennis was the eldest daughter of Alexander and Catherine Dennis, one of five children who lived past infancy. Previously farming at Sawah in St Levan parish, the family moved to Lower Trembath, Madron, near Penzance not long after Dennis’ birth.
Dennis was initially educated at home and at least partly self educated from the books of her brothers, who attend grammar school in Penzance. After being noted for her exceptional aptitude for reading and learning, was tutored by Reverend Malachy Hitchins, the vicar of St Hilary. Hitchins was a keen astronomer who tutored Dennis along with several others, mainly in mathematics. She learned several languages, including French and Latin.
As an adult, she continued to extend her reading and study of classics, learning Greek and striking up relationships with classical scholars. In the late 1790s, she met Charles Valentine le Grice, an Anglican priest and translator of the classics, and Davies Gilbert (formerly Giddy), the Cornish politician, who mentored her. Her friendships with Gilbert and le Grice friendships had a formative impact on her through mutual intellectual conversation and by Giddy lending access to his library at his home, Tredrea. She also had access to books through the local circulating libraries and bookshops. She would become closer to Le Grice following her return to Cornwall from working for the Wedgwoods at the same time as drifted apart from Giddy, to whom she was initially close. Through the families and connections of Gilbert and le Grice, she entered into a web of relationships which included well-known literary figures, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, as well as the Cornish intellectuals Humphrey Davy and John Wolcot.
The Wedgwoods
It was through her friendship with Davies Gilbert that Dennis became the governess to the four children of Josiah Wedgwood II and Elizabeth Wedgwood. It was Giddy’s hope that living with the Wedgwoods would further Dennis’ education, placing her at the center of a rich social tapestry of connections sustained by the Wedgwood’s social position and patronage. Introduced to the family in March 1798, she replaced Everina Wollstonecraft, the youngest sister of Mary Wollstonecraft, as governess in May of the same year. Living first at Stoke House in Cobham, Surrey, and then at Gunville in Dorset, through the Wedgwoods, Dennis had the chance to meet Coleridge on several occasions and to visit London.
She spent two years with the Wedgwoods and whilst initially happy in the household, the situation became increasingly tense. She was frustrated with not being treated as a social equal and felt the women of the family were hostile towards her. She also struggled with their Rousseauian philosophy of education, which she found impractical. Both she and the Wedgwoods became increasingly unhappy with the arrangement and, by mutual decision, she left the Wedgwoods in late 1800, returning home to Trembath.
Sophia St Clare
After her return to Cornwall, Dennis authored the first Gothic novel written in Cornwall: Sophia St Clare (1806). Dennis had also written a good deal of poetry, though little of it was published. Written between 1803-1805, in the book Dennis deploys stock tropes of the gothic. Disappearing figures and disembodied sighs weave in and out of the book, later revealed to be subterfuge, motivated by revenge, jealousy, and inheritance. Published anonymously during the Napoleanoic Wars, the book was set in ancien-régime France and anti-Catholic in outlook. Charlotte MacKenzie examination of the book, through both a feminist and biographic lens, analysed the ways in which its main character's life is circumscribed by patriarchy, the novel’s anti-Catholicism, and the interweavings of the novel’s plot with Dennis’ own personal life.
Davies Gilbert negotiated the novel’s publication with the London publisher Joseph Johnson on Dennis’ behalf. The book was commended by Anna Laetitia Barbauld and the Cornish satirist John Wolcot and was described by Gilbert as ‘far superior in style of writing and in correctness of sentiment, to the fictions of the day’.
Death
Dennis died of tuberculosis on the 30th August 1809. She likely caught the illness from her sister or mother, both of whom she had nursed until their deaths from the same illness, within six weeks of each other, just a year earlier. No longer resident in Cornwall, Davies Giddy had chanced a visit to her at Trembath the day before her death. He recorded her death in his diary the next day, noting her ‘extraordinary abilities’, and witnessed her funeral procession leaving for St. Levan two days later.
She was noted in the first volume of Boase and Courtney’s 1874 work Bibliotheca Cornubiensis. She is commemorated with a Latin wall memorial in St Levan Church, installed many years after her death by Gilbert. Despite periods of silence between them, Dennis’ friendship and correspondence with Gilbert spanned fourteen years. This correspondence is held in the Davies Gilbert family of Trelissick collection at Kresen Kernow and has been examined by scholars for her impressions of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (see R.S. Woof (1962) and F. Doherty (1979)).
- MacKenzie, C. (2020) Women Writers and Georgian Cornwall. Truro: Cornwall History. “‘Unequal to the Situation’, the Wedgwood’s governess Thomasin Dennis”
- Gilbert, D. (1838) The Parochial History of Cornwall. Volume III. London: J.B. Nicholls and Son, 34
- Mackenzie, ‘The gothic novelist Thomasin Dennis’.
Sources
Doherty, F. (1979) ‘Some first-hand impressions of coleridge in the correspondence of Thomasin Dennis and Davies Giddy’ Neophilologus 63, 300–308
Gilbert, D. (1838) The Parochial History of Cornwall. Volume III. London: J.B. Nicholls and Son
Mackenzie, C. (2020) Women Writers and Georgian Cornwall. Truro: Cornwall History
Woof, R.S. (1962) ‘Coleridge and Thomasina Dennis’ University of Toronto Quarterly 32:1, (October) pp. 37-54
Timeline
The gothic novelist, Thomasin Dennis, is born.
Thomas Dennis begins work as a governess for the wealthy and well-connected Wedgwood family
Publication of Thomasin Dennis' Sophia St.Clair. Written over two years from 1803-1805, the book was the first gothic novel ever written in Cornwall.
Thomasin Dennis, author, died, aged 37