Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Elizabeth Inchbald
-
Standard Name: Inchbald, Elizabeth
Birth Name: Elizabeth Simpson
Married Name: Elizabeth Inchbald
Pseudonym: Mrs Woodley
Nickname: Mrs Perfection
EI
was a diarist from her teens. Before and after her debut on as an actress on the London stage in 1780, she considered writing as a way to make a living. Before she had made any headway getting her first novel accepted, she became a prolific dramatist: she wrote or translated twenty-one plays (about half of them adaptations). Three major theatrical editing projects appeared under her name. In the early twenty-first century her reputation stands high both as novelist and dramatist.
AO
was an indefatigable letter-writer. Her surviving correspondence at the Huntington Library
includes 331 letters (1794-1850). Most are written by her to her cousin Eliza (Alderson) Briggs
or her husband; a few are from her...
Textual Production
Eliza Parsons
It shared the bill (which was given for the benefit of actress Isabella Mattocks
) with Elizabeth Inchbald
's The Child of Nature (adapted from Genlis
) and The Soldier's Festival; or, The Night before...
Friends, Associates
Anne Plumptre
Elizabeth Inchbald
had written in veiled terms to Morgan
before the latter's marriage of her own brief and unhappy acquaintance (something like patronage) withAP
. This experience (which, she says, was well known to...
Textual Production
Anne Plumptre
Her version of La Perouse was refused a licence, on political grounds, by the censor John Larpent
(husband of Anna Margaretta Larpent
). The Natural Son, 1798, was her translation of Das Kind der...
Literary responses
Anne Plumptre
Kotzebue was then all the rage. The Critical Review discussed AP
's The Natural Son in December 1798, explaining the changes made in her version for stage presentation, and considering her biography of Kotzebue. But...
Leisure and Society
Ann Radcliffe
Soon after returning from their European travels, AR
and her husband went to a literary dinner given by her publisher George Robinson
to celebrate the success of The Mysteries of Udolpho. Elizabeth Inchbald
was...
Publishing
Ann Radcliffe
It had been advertised in the London Chronicle on 22-4 April.
Norton, Rictor. Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Ann Radcliffe. Leicester University Press.
93
The day after it appeared AR
's previous publisher, Hookham
, issued a whole clutch of related works: new editions of her first...
Literary responses
Ann Radcliffe
The Italian won for AR
the accolade of praise from Thomas James Matthias
, scholar, editor, and librarian at Buckingham Palace, who invoked the shade of Ariosto
to honour her in the same place...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Susanna Haswell Rowson
In this humorous poem the author draws on her first-hand knowledge, as an actor and singer, with the London stage. She marshals thirty-four of it actors and writers to appear before Apollo, who metes out...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Anna Seward
AS
's correspondence often deals with literary matters as well as with social matters and personalities. She writes with astonishing freedom to Hester Piozzi
about the latter's travel book Observations and Reflections: not only...
Friends, Associates
Charlotte Smith
Probably after Mary Wollstonecraft's death, CS
became a friend of William Godwin
, Elizabeth Inchbald
, and Eliza Fenwick
. Also a friend was the publisher Joseph Johnson
.
Fletcher, Loraine. Charlotte Smith: A Critical Biography. Macmillan.
261, 288
Occupation
Leah Sumbel
She received rave reviews for this first appearance, as Mrs Cadwallader in The Author (a burlesque portrayal of a woman writer). Later that summer she swashbuckled as Macheath in a famous transvestite production of Gay
Friends, Associates
Leah Sumbel
Mary Wells (later LS
) drew her female friends from both the theatre and the demi-monde: they included Elizabeth Sarah Gooch
and Mary Robinson
, as well as the highly respectable Elizabeth Inchbald
.
Textual Features
Leah Sumbel
Over the signature Old Kent, Mary Wells (later LS
) contributed to The World theatre criticism and reports of, for instance, the trial of Warren Hastings
. She and her friend Elizabeth Inchbald
supplied...
