Sarah Scott (née Robinson) (21 September 1720 – 3 November 1795) was an English novelist, translator, social reformer, and member of the Bluestockings. Her most famous work was her utopian novel A Description of Millenium Hall and the Country Adjacent, followed closely by the sequel The History of Sir George Ellison.
Early life
Sarah's father, Matthew Robinson, and her mother, Elizabeth Drake, were both from distinguished families, and Sarah was the youngest of nine children. Although born in Yorkshire, she spent much time with her siblings in Cambridge, England, where her grandmother, Sarah Morris Drake, lived with her stepgrandfather, Dr. Conyers Middleton, a famous scholar at Cambridge University. All but one of her brothers would go on to a highly accomplished career, yet her elder sister, who would later become the writer and social activist Elizabeth Montagu, became the most accomplished, earning fame in literary circles as a critic of Shakespeare and founder of the Bluestockings, of which Sarah also became a member. The sisters were emotionally close in their early years. Although Elizabeth was much more acclaimed as an author, Elizabeth often considered Sarah to be "superior in certain respects, particularly intellectual and literary interests, in which she encouraged her." The two regularly corresponded with each other in letters which have been preserved, along with other letters Sarah wrote throughout her life, discussing such matters as "French and English literature and histories, writing, translation, and politics." Sarah's letters also revealed an early love of literature, especially the works of Spenser, Sidney, Milton, Swift, and Voltaire.
Sarah contracted smallpox in 1741, a disease that would often leave its victims scarred and disfigured, "lowering [their] value in the marriage market." Scholars have traced the impact that smallpox left on Scott literary output: "Scott's pronounced concern [with deformity...] was motivated by her own experience of being left marked by a severe bout of smallpox [...], a trauma which had played a key role in redirecting her away from emulating the social success of her equally beautiful sister Elizabeth (Robinson), towards a life dedicated to writing, domestic female friendship and Christian philanthropy." Sarah would later create a fictional character in Millenium Hall who had the telltale marks of smallpox that diminished her complexion but not her character.
A year after Sarah's illness, her sister Elizabeth, after being befriended by Lady Margaret Harley and introduced to the highest circles of London life, married the wealthy 50-year-old Edward Montagu, grandson of the Earl of Sandwich. Sarah stayed home to tend to her mother, who was dying of cancer. After her mother died in 1746, Sarah visited Elizabeth and Edward in Bath. She chose to stay and care for the invalid Lady Barbara Montagu, or Lady Bab, with whom she developed a very close friendship. In 1748, the two women combined their finances and set up house together.
Marriage
In the late 1740s, Sarah contracted to marry George Lewis Scott, a friend of the family from Canterbury who was twelve years older than she. He had no profession or private income, however, and Sarah's dowry amounted to only £1,500; so, before the two could wed, Sarah helped to secure George a position as a sub-preceptor to George, Prince of Wales (later King George III), who had lately succeeded his father, Frederick, upon Frederick's death in March 1751.
Sarah and George Lewis Scott were married on 15 June 1751. The marriage, according to family letters, was never consummated. In April 1752, Sarah's father and brothers came to London to remove her from her husband's house for undisclosed reasons. Speculations persisted of incompatibility, abuse, an illicit affair, or even nondisclosure of a prior marriage. It was also rumored that Sarah's friendship with Lady Bab and her insistence upon her friend moving into their household may have instigated the rift, or that Sarah had a personal aversion to marriage and/or conjugal relations. Regardless of the reason, the scandal if made public would have damaged George Scott's career; he agreed to pay Sarah a settlement of £100 a year.
When she was no longer with her husband, she became her father's charge, and he gave her no money at all. Further, he forbade Elizabeth or Sarah's brother Matthew from relieving Sarah's poverty.