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.

From November 1734 EC's verse appeared regularly for more than a decade in the
Gentleman's Magazine as by 'Eliza'.


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.

November 1807 EC's nephew
Montagu Pennington included with his
Memoirs of her the fullest selection yet of her poems, and some essays.
