Dear Mr. Clemens,

Mr. Wm. W.

I wish I could laugh off as a trifle the letter from ‘A Concerned Society Matron’ published in The Teatime Tattler this past July 28th. Sadly, this is not the case. I feel it incumbent upon myself to warn you that the forces of censorship are at work. Please take care, lest you and The Tattler fall victim to this insidious process. I have reason to suspect that the purported matron is truly an agent of The Society for the Suppression of Vice. She might even be a guise for Mr. Wm. W. himself. The members of the society (whose work against slavery is admirable) are, on the subject of literature, as ignorant as they are intolerant and see anything vaguely outside a strict and very uninformed norm of societal behavior to be dangerous and seditious vice. They are among the many frightened voices that prompted the passing of the Six Acts of 1819 which included alarming restrictions on the freedom of the press. It is after all sedition—we all remember what happened in France—that started this censorious craze. This madness of conformity labels a group of harmless, erudite, and broad-minded women as ‘scandalous and salacious.’

I paraphrase from the supposed matron’s letter not to give her absurd ideas a hearing—as you so generously did—but to prove the danger inherent in casting broad aspersions where one has little experience and less knowledge. I doubt very much that this faux-matron has ever read a single word written by The Bluestocking Belles. Nor would she know a well written and researched romance novel from the most puerile pornography. She should ask herself why no male would ever admit to reading works such as those written by The Belles. While I am certain most men believe they have good reason to avoid these works, those reasons spring from ignorance. In fact, I challenge the matron and her male contemporaries in rank and education (which cannot be very extensive) to read any one of the works by the Bluestocking Belles. Further having done so, I challenge any of them who has read a Bluestocking Belles’ book to prove the stories are seditious or vice filled in any way.

One of many novels from the work of The Bluestocking Belles.

Before the public bows to rants like those of the ‘concerned society matron,’ let them look for themselves at the body of work by the Bluestocking Belles. I am certain that any educated, open-minded person will arrive at the same conclusion as I have. The novels and stories of the Bluestocking Belles are to be lauded. They belong in the highest ranks of great literature and could, were it possible, teach even Ovid and Homer a lesson or two.

I sign myself proudly,

Lady Hultinford of St. Brendan Priory, Warwickshire

A dedicated supporter of learned entertainments in general and in particular, The Bluestocking Belles.