Maria de Fleury (c.1752-1792) is the 11th essay in British Particular Baptists, Volume 5

For women of the late eighteenth century, becoming a writer was never an easy accomplishment, given the numerous social and educational impediments they had to overcome. Despite these difficulties, by 1800 women were publishing in nearly every genre in greater numbers than ever before, with some earning a significant income from their pens. . . .Maria de Fleury [,] though an obscure figure today, between 1780 and 1792 . . . was the most widely recognized female writer among London’s Calvinistic Dissenters. During these years, she published seven poetical works, both religious and political, as well as numerous poems in the Protestant Magazine (1781-1782). . . .Besides her poetry, however, de Fleury gained considerable recognition. . . for her extraordinary pamphlet war with the controversial antinomian preacher William Huntington. In her pamphlets, as she did in her poetry, de Fleury vigorously defended her right as a woman to speak publicly on the controversial religious issues of her day, even daring to engage a prominent minister like Huntington as an equal in the literary marketplace of London's Dissenting culture in the late eighteenth century. --Timothy Whelan