James Henry Lawrence
{{Short description|English writer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2019}}
James Henry Lawrence (1773–1840) was a British writer. He is known for his utopian novel The Empire of the Nairs, or the Rights of Women, which appeared in English in 1811. It was influenced by the political writing of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin.{{cite book|last=Claeys|first=Gregory|title=The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature|year=2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521714143|page=70}}
Life
He was the son of Richard James Lawrence, a slave-owner of Fairfield, Jamaica. He was educated at Eton College, where he was Montem poet in 1790.{{cite DNB|wstitle=Lawrence, James Henry|volume=32}} He then studied in Germany, at the University of Göttingen.{{cite ODNB|id=16180|first=Nigel|last=Leask|title=Lawrence, James Henry}}
Lawrence led an itinerant life, mainly in continental Europe. In 1803, in France with his father, he was arrested, along with other English residents and tourists, and was detained for several years at Verdun. He escaped by passing himself off as an Austrian. He received compensation for the Fairfield estate, under the Slave Compensation Act 1837.{{cite web|url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/43292|title=Summary of Individual James Henry Lawrence 1773-1840, Legacies of British Slave-ownership|access-date=21 January 2018}}
Lawrence died unmarried 26 September 1840, and was interred with his father in the burying-ground of St. John's Wood Chapel. He claimed to be a Knight of Malta, and was known as the Chevalier Lawrence.
Works
The "utopian romance" The Empire of the Nairs, Lawrence's major work, developed in stages. In 1793 he published in Der Teutsche Merkur an essay on the Nair castes of Malabar, examining their customs of marriage and inheritance. In 1800 Lawrence completed a novel on the topic, in German. It was published in the Journal der Romane the following year, as Das Paradies der Liebe, then reprinted as Das Reich der Nairen. The book was subsequently translated into French and English by the author, and published in both versions; the English translation, as The Empire of the Nairs (1811), was much modified from the original, and had an introduction advocating the customs. The content is a description of a search for sexual freedom and independence for women.Anne Verjus; Une société sans pères peut-elle être féministe ?: L'empire des Nairs de James H. Lawrence. French Historical Studies 1 August 2019; 42 (3): 359–389. {{doi|10.1215/00161071-7558292}}{{cite book|last=Claeys|first=Gregory|title=The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature|year=2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521714143|page=157}}
Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote to Lawrence about the book, in 1812.{{cite book|last=Shelley|first=Percy Bysshe|title=Shelley on Love: An Anthology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BA0uA56wwhoC&pg=PA49|access-date=21 January 2018|year=1980|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=9780520043220|page=49}} Aaron Burr admired it, and called on Lawrence in London.{{cite book|last=Burr|first=Aaron|title=The Private Journal of Aaron Burr: During His Residence of Four Years in Europe: with Selections from His Correspondence|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bW49AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA342|access-date=21 January 2018|year=1858|publisher=Harper & brothers|page=342}} Other works were:
- A Picture of Verdun, or the English detained in France (London 1810, 2 vols.)
- On the Nobility of the British Gentry (1824, 4th ed. 1840)
- The Etonian out of Bounds (1828), a collection of writings.
Notes
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External links
;Attribution
{{DNB|wstitle=Lawrence, James Henry|volume=32}}
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Category:People educated at Eton College
Category:University of Göttingen alumni