A Description of Millenium Hall, and the Country Adjacent

In 1762, English novelist Sarah Scott published her most successful novel, A Description of Millenium Hall and the Country Adjacent.

The book takes the form of a frame tale and a series of adventures, as the narrator’s long-lost cousin relates how each of the residents arrived at the female Utopia, Millenium Hall. The adventures are remarkable for their reliance on a nearly superstitious form of divine grace, where God’s will manifests itself with the direct punishment of the wicked and the miraculous protection of the innocent. In one tale, a woman about to be ravished by a man is saved, literally by the hand of God, as her attacker dies of a stroke. The Hall the characters live in is a model of mid-century reform ideas. All the women have crafts with which to better themselves. Property is held in common, and education is the primary pastime.

The author’s sister, Lady Elizabeth Montagu, had become a leader of the bluestockings, a coterie of reform-minded individuals. They believed in female equality, education, and limited economic justice. They were also active in prison and health care reform. Although Elizabeth may be lightly satirized in the figure of Lady Brumpton in Millenium Hall, the Hall is a fictional embodiment of bluestocking ideals.