Alcock, Mary (1742–1798)

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Alcock, Mary (1742–1798)

British poet. Born 1742 in Northamptonshire, England; died May 28, 1798, in Northamptonshire; youngest dau. of Denison Cumberland (vicar, later bishop of Clonfert in Ireland, then of Kilmore) and Joanna Bentley (dau. of Richard Bentley, master of Trinity College, Cambridge); sister of Richard Cumberland, playwright; m. John Alcock (archdeacon).

Active in literary circles (1780s–90s), was often compared to Romantic poets like William Blake; poems allude to political events and such figures as Thomas Paine and Mary Wollstonecraft; wrote The Air Balloon; or The Flying Mortal (1784) and posthumous collection Poetical Writer (1799).

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Alcock, Mary (1742–1798)

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