Abstract
My thesis examines the work of eighteenth-century female historian, Catharine Macaulay. Politically well-connected, Macaulay was an important and controversial figure of the age, corresponding with men such as Washington, and was a strong influence on early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. My thesis will be examining Macaulay's contribution to the historiographical debate over English republicanism in her magnum opus The History of England (1763-83), and will compare her historical analysis with her contemporary antagonists, Hume and Burke. By placing Macaulay's work within the contemporary political and literary culture, the book trade and the emergent feminist discourse of the
Enlightenment, I hope to contribute to the debate over the status of women writers and intellectuals in the male-dominated public political sphere. I am particularly interested in understanding to what extent there was a paradoxical relationship between the level of political literacy of women such as Macaulay and the reality of restricted female political action.
