Elizabeth Smith

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Standard Name: Smith, Elizabeth,, 1776 - 1806
Elizabeth Smith , a young woman of unusual intellectual gifts, aroused public interest by her early death, and by the abilities and especially the piety revealed in her posthumously published works. She was a scholar (particularly in the field of languages) rather than a writer, but her poems, letters, and reflections are worthy of interest as well as her fine translations from German and Hebrew. She was much exercised by the malign image of the learned lady, which seems to have made her uneasy about her talents and ambition, but her discussions of this issue proved empowering for many of her immediate (and publishing) successors.
Stipple engraving of Elizabeth Smith, 1776-1806, by R. M. Meadows from a drawing by John George Wood, published 1809. This head-and-shoulders, oval picture shows her wearing a simple, loose, high-waisted dress with a tall frilled collar. Her dark curly hair is pulled up and tied on top of her head. Below is printed in italic script: "This is a Drawing of the Author during her last Illness by J. G. Wood." National Portrait Gallery.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Friends, Associates Henrietta Maria Bowdler
Frances Burney preferred HMB , as more kind and gentle, to her sister Frances Bowdler. Burney amusingly records a visit by herself, HMB and others, to Lady Miller of Batheaston on 8 June 1780, when...
Family and Intimate relationships Henrietta Maria Bowdler
Elizabeth Mavor , biographer of Butler and Ponsonby , classes as romantic attachments HMB 's friendships with both of them, with Smith , and with Margaret Davies . Bowdler was, says Mavor, inclined to adopt...
Textual Production Henrietta Maria Bowdler
HMB performed another labour of love in editing her friend Elizabeth Smith 's posthumous Fragments in Prose and Verse. With Some Account of Her Life and Character by H. M. Bowdler. This remarkable volume...
Textual Features Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger
EOB writes in terms of a women's tradition: for instance, she praises Barbauld for praising Elizabeth Rowe . She makes confident judgements and attributions (she is sure that Lady Pakington is the real author of...
Textual Production Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger
EOB gave her name, and said on the title-page that she intended the volume as a sequel to the biography of Klopstock and his wife by the scholar Elizabeth Smith , which had been published posthumously.
Textual Features Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger
This edition was published by Colburn . EOB 's excellent scholarly introduction dwells on recent literary achievements of women. She does not explicitly identify the British ones she refers to, but they are clearly (as...
Textual Features Clara Balfour
CB included in her collection the well-known writers Hannah More , Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna , Anna Letitia Barbauld , and Sarah Trimmer . Subjects of other sketches which also appeared separately included many of evangelical...

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