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Elizabeth Carter entry: Overview screen.
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Overview
Writing
Life
Writing and Life
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Elizabeth Carter was renowned during a long span of the later eighteenth century as a scholar and translator from several languages and the most seriously learned among the Bluestockings. Her English version of Epictetus was still current into the twentieth century. She was also a poet and a delightful letter-writer.
Milestones
16 December 1717 EC was born at Deal in Kent; she was the eldest of her parents' five children. Bibliographic Citation link.
From November 1734 EC's verse appeared regularly for more than a decade in the Gentleman's Magazine as by 'Eliza'. Bibliographic Citation link. scholarly note link.
By April 1749 EC had promised Catherine Talbot that she would undertake the project of making a scholarly translation of the Enchiridion by Epictetus. Bibliographic Citation link. scholarly note link.
11 January 1755 EC declared that she had finished translating Epictetus (not merely his Enchiridion but his complete works)—though she needed still to write a biography of him and an essay on Stoic philosophy. Bibliographic Citation link.
April 1758 EC published her scholarly translation of All the Works of Epictetus, by subscription, as a handsome folio printed by Samuel Richardson. Bibliographic Citation link.
19 February 1806 EC died at her regular winter lodgings in 20 Clarges Street, Piccadilly, London. Bibliographic Citation link.
November 1807 EC's nephew Montagu Pennington included with his Memoirs of her the fullest selection yet of her poems, and some essays. Bibliographic Citation link.
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