MARY DE LA

See also:

• RIVIERE, BRITON (1840- )

RIVIERE

See also:

• MARY DE LA RIVIERE MANLEY (c. 1663-1724)

MANLEY (c. 1663-1724)  , English writer, daughter of Sir Roger Manley, governor of the Channel Islands, was born on the 7th of April 1663 in Jersey . She wrote her own biography under the title of The Adventures of Rivella, or the History of the Author of the Atalantis by " Sir Charles Lovemore " (1714) . According to her own account she was left an orphan at the age of sixteen, and beguiled into a mock marriage with a kinsman who deserted her basely three years afterwards . She was patronized for a short time by the duchess of Cleveland, and wrote an unsuccessful comedy, The Lost Lover (1696); in freedom of speech she equalled the most licentious writers of comedy in that generation . Her tragedy, The Royal Mischief (1696) was more successful . From 1696 Mrs Manley was a favourite member of witty and fashionable society . In 1705 appeared The Secret History of Queen Zarah and the Zarazians, a satire on Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, in the guise of romance . This was probably by Mrs Manley, who, four years later, achieved her principal triumph as a writer by her Secret Memoirs . . . . of Several Persons of Quality (1709), a scandalous chronicle " from the New Atalantis, an island in the Mediterranean." She was arrested in the autumn of 1709 as the author of a libellous publication, but was discharged by the court of queen's bench on the 13th of February 1710 . Mrs Manley sought in this scandalous narrative to expose the private vices of the ministers whom Swift, Bolingbroke and Harley combined to drive from office . During the keen political campaign in 1711 she wrote several pamphlets, and many numbers of the Examiner, criticizing persons and policy with equal vivacity .

Later were published her tragedy

Lucius (1717); The Power of Love, in Seven Novels (1720), and A Stage Coach Journey to Exeter (1725) .