Mary Pix
Encyclopedia
Mary Pix was an English
novelist and playwright
. Church records indicate that she lived in London
, marrying George Pix, a merchant
tailor
from Hawkhurst
, Kent
in 1684. Baptismal records reveal that she had two sons, George (1689) and William (1691). It appears that George died in 1690.
; her father Roger died when she was very young, but Mary and her mother continued to live in the schoolhouse after his death. She was courted by her father’s successor Thomas Dalby, but he left with the outbreak of smallpox in town, just one year after the mysterious fire that burned the schoolhouse.
Mary Griffiths (her maiden name) married George Pix, a merchant, and moved to his country state in Kent. Her first son, George, died very young, but the next year they moved to London and she gave birth to another son, William. While living in London and when she was 30, she became a professional writer, with her tragedy Ibrahim (1695-6).
At first she associated herself with two other playwrights of the time, Delariviere Manley and Catherine Trotter, reaching a great success that granted them some criticism in the form of an anonymous satirical play The Female Wits (1696). Mary Pix appears as “Mrs. Wellfed one that represents a fat, female author. A good rather sociable, well-matured companion that would not suffer martyrdom rather than take off three bumpers in a hand” (From The Female Wits, Morgan, 1981: 392). She is depicted as an ignorant woman, but amiable and unpretentious and she is summed up in the play as “foolish and openhearted” (From The Female Wits, Morgan, 1981: 392)
Her first play was put on stage at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
in 1696, but when that same theatrical company performed The Female Wits she changed to Lincoln's Inn Fields
. They said of her that “she has boldly given us an essay of her talent … and not without success, though with little profit to herself” (Morgan, 1991: xii).
Her plays were mainly performed at Drury Lane, a theatre that was located very near her own house in London. One of her plays, The Deceiver Deceived (1697), was involved in a case of plagiarism
with George Powell, who was accused of copying her play in his The Imposture Defeated (1697).
She was quite successful in her professional life, and most of her plays had a good reputation amongst the audience. Her tragedies were quite popular because she managed to mix extreme action with melting love scenes. But her best pieces are her comedies, with their lively and full of double plots, intrigues, confusion, songs, dances and disguises. An Encyclopaedia of British Women Writers (1998) points out that
Few of the female playwrights of Mary Pix’s time came from a theatrical background, and none came from the aristocracy: within a century, most successful actresses and female authors came from a familiar tradition of literature and theatre, but Mary Pix and her contemporaries came from outside this world and had little in common with one another apart from a love for literature and a middle-class background.
At the time of Mary Pix, “The ideal of the one-breadwinner family had not yet become dominant”; whereas in 18th-century families it was normal for the woman to stay at home taking care of the children, house and servants, in Restoration England husband and wife worked together in familiar enterprises that sustained them both, and female playwrights earned the same wage as their male counterparts.
Morgan also points out that “till the close of the period, authorship was not generally advertised on playbills, nor always proclaimed when plays were printed”. This made it easier for female authors to hide their identity so as to be more easily accepted among the most conservative audiences.
As Morgan points out, “plays were valued according to how they performed and not by who wrote them. When authorship ―female or otherwise― remained a matter of passing interest, female playwrights were in an open and equal market with their male colleagues” (Morgan, 1991: xx); the fact that the author was not very important made it easier for female writers to use male names, so their plays would be more easily accepted. This explains why many of the plays written by females have been lost, unknown about and why they have been mistakenly attributed to some other male authors of the time.
Although some contemporary women writers, like Aphra Behn
, have been rediscovered, even the most specialised scholars have little knowledge of works by writers such as Catherine Trotter, Delariviere Manley or Mary Pix. Plays like The Beau Defeated (1700) present with a wider range of female characters than plays written by men at the time.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
novelist and playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
. Church records indicate that she lived in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, marrying George Pix, a merchant
Merchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
tailor
Tailor
A tailor is a person who makes, repairs, or alters clothing professionally, especially suits and men's clothing.Although the term dates to the thirteenth century, tailor took on its modern sense in the late eighteenth century, and now refers to makers of men's and women's suits, coats, trousers,...
from Hawkhurst
Hawkhurst
Hawkhurst is a village and civil parish in the borough of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. The parish lies to the south-east of Tunbridge Wells. Hawkhurst itself is virtually two villages...
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
in 1684. Baptismal records reveal that she had two sons, George (1689) and William (1691). It appears that George died in 1690.
Life and work
She was born in 1666, the daughter of a rector, musician and Headmaster of the Royal Latin SchoolRoyal Latin School
The Royal Latin School is a co-educational grammar school in Buckingham, England. In September 2011 the school became an Academy.. It takes children from the age of 11 through to the age of 18 and has over 1260 pupils, including a sixth form of 390 pupils. It maintains a staff of over 160...
; her father Roger died when she was very young, but Mary and her mother continued to live in the schoolhouse after his death. She was courted by her father’s successor Thomas Dalby, but he left with the outbreak of smallpox in town, just one year after the mysterious fire that burned the schoolhouse.
Mary Griffiths (her maiden name) married George Pix, a merchant, and moved to his country state in Kent. Her first son, George, died very young, but the next year they moved to London and she gave birth to another son, William. While living in London and when she was 30, she became a professional writer, with her tragedy Ibrahim (1695-6).
At first she associated herself with two other playwrights of the time, Delariviere Manley and Catherine Trotter, reaching a great success that granted them some criticism in the form of an anonymous satirical play The Female Wits (1696). Mary Pix appears as “Mrs. Wellfed one that represents a fat, female author. A good rather sociable, well-matured companion that would not suffer martyrdom rather than take off three bumpers in a hand” (From The Female Wits, Morgan, 1981: 392). She is depicted as an ignorant woman, but amiable and unpretentious and she is summed up in the play as “foolish and openhearted” (From The Female Wits, Morgan, 1981: 392)
Her first play was put on stage at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
in 1696, but when that same theatrical company performed The Female Wits she changed to Lincoln's Inn Fields
Lincoln's Inn Fields
Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London, UK. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in developing London", as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner observes...
. They said of her that “she has boldly given us an essay of her talent … and not without success, though with little profit to herself” (Morgan, 1991: xii).
Her plays were mainly performed at Drury Lane, a theatre that was located very near her own house in London. One of her plays, The Deceiver Deceived (1697), was involved in a case of plagiarism
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
with George Powell, who was accused of copying her play in his The Imposture Defeated (1697).
She was quite successful in her professional life, and most of her plays had a good reputation amongst the audience. Her tragedies were quite popular because she managed to mix extreme action with melting love scenes. But her best pieces are her comedies, with their lively and full of double plots, intrigues, confusion, songs, dances and disguises. An Encyclopaedia of British Women Writers (1998) points out that
- Forced or unhappy marriages appear frequently and prominently in the comedies. Pix is not, however, writing polemics against the forced marriage but using it as a plot device and sentimentalizing the unhappily married person, who is sometimes rescued and married more satisfactorily. (Schlueter & Schlueter, 1998: 513)
Few of the female playwrights of Mary Pix’s time came from a theatrical background, and none came from the aristocracy: within a century, most successful actresses and female authors came from a familiar tradition of literature and theatre, but Mary Pix and her contemporaries came from outside this world and had little in common with one another apart from a love for literature and a middle-class background.
At the time of Mary Pix, “The ideal of the one-breadwinner family had not yet become dominant”; whereas in 18th-century families it was normal for the woman to stay at home taking care of the children, house and servants, in Restoration England husband and wife worked together in familiar enterprises that sustained them both, and female playwrights earned the same wage as their male counterparts.
Morgan also points out that “till the close of the period, authorship was not generally advertised on playbills, nor always proclaimed when plays were printed”. This made it easier for female authors to hide their identity so as to be more easily accepted among the most conservative audiences.
As Morgan points out, “plays were valued according to how they performed and not by who wrote them. When authorship ―female or otherwise― remained a matter of passing interest, female playwrights were in an open and equal market with their male colleagues” (Morgan, 1991: xx); the fact that the author was not very important made it easier for female writers to use male names, so their plays would be more easily accepted. This explains why many of the plays written by females have been lost, unknown about and why they have been mistakenly attributed to some other male authors of the time.
Although some contemporary women writers, like Aphra Behn
Aphra Behn
Aphra Behn was a prolific dramatist of the English Restoration and was one of the first English professional female writers. Her writing contributed to the amatory fiction genre of British literature.-Early life:...
, have been rediscovered, even the most specialised scholars have little knowledge of works by writers such as Catherine Trotter, Delariviere Manley or Mary Pix. Plays like The Beau Defeated (1700) present with a wider range of female characters than plays written by men at the time.
Works
Pix produced one novel and seven plays. There are four other plays that were published anonymously that are generally attributed to her.Plays
- Ibrahim, the Thirteenth Emperor of the Turks (1696)
- The Spanish Wives (1696)
- The Innocent Mistress (1697)
- The Deceiver Deceived (1697)
- Queen Catharine, or, The Ruines of Love (1698)
- The False Friend, or, the Fate of Disobedience (1699)
- The Beau Defeated, or, the Lucky Younger Brother (1700)
- The Double Distress (1701)
- The Czar of Muscovy (1701), attributed to Pix although not published in her name
- The Different Widows: or, Intrigue All-A-Mode (1703), attributed to Pix
- The Conquest of Spain (1705), attributed to Pix
- The Adventures in Madrid (1706) attributed to Pix.