Catharine Trotter Cockburn

Catharine Trotter Cockburn (16 August 1674? – 11 May 1749) was a novelist, dramatist, and philosopher.

Catharine Trotter was most likely born in 1674 rather than the later date of 1679, which had been previously accepted. Born to Scottish parents living in London, Trotter was raised Protestant but converted to Roman Catholicism at an early age. She finally returned to the Church of England in 1707, after what she terms much "free and impartial Enquiries." She was aided in this by Bishop Gilbert Burnet, who wrote the preface to her A Discourse Concerning the Controversies, 1707. After an illustrious career, her father, navy captain David Trotter, died of the plague in 1684, leaving his family in financial jeopardy.

Catharine was a precocious and largely self-educated young woman, who had her first novel (The Adventures of a Young Lady, later retitled Olinda's Adventures) published anonymously in 1693, when she was but 14 years old. Her first published play, Agnes de Castro (a verse dramatisation of Aphra Behn's story of the same title), was staged two years later. In 1696, she was famously satirised alongside Delarivier Manley and Mary Pix in the anonymous play, The Female Wits. In it, Trotter was lampooned in the figure of "Calista, a lady who pretends to the learned languages and assumes to herself the name of critic." Her second and arguably best-liked play The Fatal Friendship was staged in 1698. Trotter's dramatic works generally met with modest public success and qualified praise from critics. Playwright William Congreve encouraged and guided her dramatic writing.

In 1702, at the age of 23, Trotter published her first major philosophical work, A Defence of Mr. Lock's [sic.] An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. John Locke was so pleased with this defence that he made gifts of money and books to his young apologist acting through Elizabeth Burnet who had first made Locke aware of Trotter's "Defence". Trotter went on to write two more works on moral philosophy, two theological tracts, and a voluminous correspondence.

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