Schimmelpenninck practiced phrenology based upon the four classical temperaments (choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, and melancholic), receiving many requests “by her young friends to give them hints on the formation of character from their phrenological development; and if a judgment may be formed of Mrs. Schimmelpenninck’s accuracy from the frequency of these applications,” her biographer notes, “her success must have been great indeed.” (Hankin, Life, 462).Schimmelpenninck once examined Joseph Cottle’s niece, Sarah Saunders (1807-25) of Plymouth, who spent most of her short life living with Cottle and his sisters and attending their school in Bristol. Twelve-year-old Sarah visited Mrs. Schimmelpenninck at her home in Berkeley Square on April 3, 1819, writing home to her father that Schimmelpenninck was “a most extraordinary Lady indeed, both with regards to oddity, and intense study,” echoing Schimmelpenninck’s description earlier that day of Sarah’s head as “a most extraordinary head indeed!” Shortly before her death from consumption in 1825, Saunders corresponded with the famed Baptist essayist from Bristol, John Foster, Cottle’s close friend. Foster’s letters were later published by the Religious Tract Society as Nine Letters Addressed to Miss Sarah Saunders, during her last Illness, but Sarah’s letters were omitted, another example of a young woman’s voice not only silenced by death but also by the unfortunate editorial decisions of her family members. A brief memoir of her, however, did appear in Foster’s volume. A manuscript copy of her letter to her father can be found in the Cottle Collection, Bodleian Library, Eng. Misc. c. 36., fols. 18-20, alongside copies of a poem by Cottle about Sarah and two letters by Robert Southey to Cottle, February 12 and 25, 1825, both offering Cottle condolences after her death (fols. 24-25).

Other publications by Schimmelpennick include Narrative of a Tour taken in the Year 1667, to La Grande Chartreuse and Alet, by dom Claude Lancelot (London: J. and A. Arch, 1813); Proofs of Mistatements of Facts contained in an Attack upon the Fidelity and Veracity of the Author of the Tour to Alet (London, 1814); Theory on the Classification of Beauty and Deformity, and their Correspondence with Physiognomonic Expression (London: John and Arthur Arch, 1815); Narrative of the Demolition of the Monastery of Port Royal des Champs, including Memoirs of its Inhabitants (London: J. and A. Arch, 1816); Biblical Fragments (London: Printed for Ogle, Duncan, and Co., 1821); Asaph, or, The Herrnhutters: being a Rhythmical Sketch of the Principal Events, and most Remarkable Institutions in the Modern History of the Church of the Unitas Fratrum, commonly called Moravians (London: Printed for Ogle, Duncan, and Co., 1822); Is the System of Slavery Sanctioned or Condemned by Scripture? (London: J. and A. Arch, 1824); Psalms according to the Authorized Version, with Prefatory Titles, and Tabular Index of Scriptural References from the Port Royal Authors (London: 1825); Some Particulars relating to the Late Emperor Alexander, Previous to his Arrival, and during his Stay at Paris, in 1815 . . . translated from the French [by M.A. Schimmelpenninck] (London and Bristol, 1830); Select Memoirs of Port Royal To which are Appended Tour to Alet, Visit to Port Royal, Gift of an Abbess, Biographical Notices, &c. &c., taken from original documents (London: Hamilton, Adams, 1835).

For more on Schimmelpenninck, see Christiana C. Hankin, ed., The Life of Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck, 4th ed. (London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1860). For more on the other literary women in Bristol besides Hays, see Marie Mulvey-Roberts, ed., Literary Bristol: Writers and the City (Bristol: Redcliffe Press, 2015); Mulvey-Roberts, “Female Radicals,” 57-66; and Jane Duffus, ed., The Women Who Built Bristol, 2 vols (Bristol, UK: Tangent, 2019). Ann and Mary Bryan two Baptist booksellers in Bristol, can also be found on the Woman Booksellers section of this site; click here for Ann Bryan and here for Mary Bryan.