I wonder whether anyone can help me with an enquiry from a Flemish
friend in Bruges. I would be most grateful for any pointers. His enquiry follows:
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I have been writing a study concerning "an Englishman abroad", named Thomas
Forster, who lived in Bruges from 1842 till 1852.
I have one question left, over which I wonder if you could perhaps give me
some direction to follow. It concerns a person with whom he was close
and of
who he speaks with the highest regard, a Lady Mary Shepherd, who was a
philosopher and wrote "Essays on the perception of an external universe".
She was most probably a minor writer and philosopher, but a woman
philosopher was certainly somebody out of the ordinary in those days.
Nevertheless she seems to have vanished completely.
Nothing in the Dictionary of national biography, nothing on the web (The
search engines are better in covering the Spice Girls, etc), nothing on
websites (I consulted a rather good one on the Victorian Age). I made
enquiries at the British Library, the Bodleian, the Cambridge University,
all in vain. The same with the catalogue of the Library of Congress(although
it has a copy of her book).
I suppose, if she can be found, it will be in academic studies on minor 19th
century philosophers.
And here comes my question. Do you possibly have an idea where I could have
a chance of finding something? Perhaps you could have an idea of a
person or
institute where I am likely to find somebody who could have heard of her.
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Many thanks for any help you can offer.
Jeremy Cooper.
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