Mary Steele

Mary Steele (1753-1813) was the only daughter of William Steele IV (1715-85) and his first wife, Mary Bullock Steele (‘Delia’) (1713-62). Mary was known within the family circle as ‘Polly’ and among the other members of the Steele circle as ‘Silvia’ or ‘Sylvia’, her literary nom de plume. She was largely educated by her aunt, Anne Steele, before completing her education at a nonconformist boarding school in London. After the death of her father in 1785, she remained with her stepmother and her two half-sisters in Broughton House, becoming head of the household after her stepmother’s death in 1791. Her marriage in 1797 to the Baptist minister Thomas Dunscombe (1748-1811) was not a happy one, but she continued to write poetry, a process she began in earnest as a thirteen-year-old in 1766. Of her nearly 150 poems, five appeared in print during her lifetime, including her longest poem, Danebury; or the Power of Friendship (1779), as well as one prose piece, none with her named attached. Among her poems are tributes to two of the leading female poets of the 1780s, Helen Maria Williams and Anna Seward. Her poetry and letters provide extensive details about her relationships with various family members, especially her father, sisters, and her favorite niece, Mary Steele Tomkins; her fellow poets Mary Scott and Elizabeth Coltman; her close relation, Jane Attwater; and her friend Caleb Evans, Baptist minister in Bristol. Steele writes in nearly every poetic genre available to poets in the eighteenth century, including the ode, sonnet, elegy, occasional verse, verse narrative, historical verse romance, and poems on the themes of retirement, nature, friendship, and religious meditation. Mary Steele’s complete published and unpublished poetry, prose, and correspondence can be found in Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 3. For an in-depth look at her life and writings, see Timothy Whelan, Other British Voices: Women, Poetry, and Religion, 1766-1840 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2015), chs. 2-3, pp. 23-86. See also Timothy Whelan, “Mary Steele, Mary Hays, and the Convergence of Women’s Literary Circles in the 1790s,” Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 38.4 (2015), 511-24; idem, Mary Scott, Sarah Froud, and the Steele Literary Circle: A Revealing Annotation to The Female Advocate,” Huntington Library Quarterly 77.4 (2015), 435-52; idem,  “‘When Kindred Souls Unite’: The Literary Friendship of Mary Steele and Mary Scott, 1766-1793,” Journal of Women’s Studies 43 (2014), 619-40.

 For a selection of poems by Mary Steele, click here.

For Mary Steele's spiritual autobiography, click here.

For selected letters of Mary Steele, click here. 

For an image of Mary Steele and Broughton House, click here.