Which English feminist part of the intellectual circle with Judith Drake in the 17th century was known as "the first English feminist"?
Judith Drake Judith Drake (fl. 1670s–1723) was an English intellectual and author who was active in the last decade of the 17th century. She was part of a circle of intellectuals, authors, and philosophers which included Mary Astell, Lady Mary Chudleigh, Elizabeth Thomas, Elizabeth Elstob, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and John Norris. She was married to James Drake F.R.S., physician and Tory pamphleteer. She is remembered in the field of feminist literature for her 1696 essay, "An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex".
Anne K. Mellor Anne Kostelanetz Mellor (born July 15, 1941) is a Distinguished Professor of English Literature and Women's Studies at UCLA; she specializes in Romantic literature, British cultural history, feminist theory, philosophy, art history and gender studies. She is most known for a series of essays and books that introduced forgotten female Romantic writers into literary history, and she edited the first volume of feminist essays on Romantic writers in 1988, entitled "Romanticism and Feminism".