‘Serious Books’ and ‘Excellent Meditations’: Recovering Religion in Catherine Talbot's Reading

This article explores the connections between eighteenth‐century intellectual women and religious reading via a close examination of the letters and diaries of Catherine Talbot (1721‐1770). Talbot was a bluestocking and a devout Anglican, and while her intellectual life has been of considerable interest to scholars, her religious life remains largely unexplored. Yet she often reflected on religion as she encountered it in the books she read. This article restores religion to our understanding of Talbot (and the bluestockings more broadly), illuminates the elusive nature of eighteenth‐century Anglican devotion and contributes to an understanding of women's theological ideas and their circulation.