Catherine Jemmat

Catherine Jemmat (bap. 1714 – 1766) was an English author who published in The Gentleman's Magazine and produced two collections of her own.[1]

Memoirs etc by Mrs Catherine Jemmat

Life

She was born Catherine Yeo. Her father, the Royal Navy captain John Yeo (d. 1756), was at sea for long periods. She was left to the care of an immature and neglectful stepmother. Catherine was educated for a while at a boarding school. She eventually sought escape from her father in a hasty marriage to a Plymouth silk mercer called Jemmat. Jemmat proved a drunkard who was deep in debt and who was soon bankrupt.[2] Captain Yeo, who retired with the rank of Rear-Admiral, refused to support her or the daughter she had by Jemmat.[3]

Catherine struck out on her own and made a living by getting the wealthy to sponsor publications of her own and collected works by friends. The works were often ribald and many of the sponsors listed are anonymous.[2][4][5]

Works

Her main work is Memoirs (2 vols, 1762).[6] She also published Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (1766). She freely admitted that the volumes also contained the work of others and it is unclear which are her own and which by others.[2]

In some of her works, she bemoans the double standard that allowed men to debauch themselves without a mark on their character whilst women receive "perpetual odium".[2]

References
  1. Wood, Jeanne. "Jemmat, Catherine". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/60785. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. Lonsdale, Roger (ed) (1990). Eighteenth Century Women Poets: An Oxford Anthology. Oxford University Press. pp. 234,527. ISBN 0192827758.
  3. John Yeo, Threedecks.org, Retrieved 11 April 2016
  4. Radcliffe, David HIll. "Catherine Jemmat (1720 ca.-1766)". spenserians.cath.vt.edu. Retrieved 11 April 2016.
  5. Barros, Carolyn A.; Smith, Johanna M. (2000). Life-writings by British Women, 1660-1815: An Anthology. UPNE. p. 138. ISBN 1555534325.
  6. Memoirs of Catherine Jemmat, Archive.org, Retrieved 11 April 2016
  • Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (1766). E format available in full at the Hathitrust
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