ABSTRACT
As the increasing violence of the French Revolution divided Britons, readers of Gentleman's Magazine debated Mary Morris Knowles's presentation of her confrontation with Samuel Johnson. Her account also appeared in Lady's Magazine, where a reader raised the issue of gender. In this heightened political atmosphere, Knowles, a radical Utopian, and Seward, a polite Whig, differed strongly concerning the events in France. Knowles publicly defied James Boswell in the pages of Gentleman's Magazine at a time when escalating violence created international tensions concerning the revolution in France. Knowles's benevolent faith in progress must have been related to her belief in human perfectibility, just as it was for her contemporary, Mary Wollstonecraft. Although not a Quaker, Mary Wollstonecraft also believed in human perfectibility. Feminist scholar Barbara Taylor described Wollstonecraft's religious belief as "that unwavering faith in divine purpose that, suffusing her radicalism, turned anticipation of 'world perfected' into a confident political stance". For both women, religion and radicalism were inseparable.
