Elizabeth Isabella Spence

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Standard Name: Spence, Elizabeth Isabella
Indexed Name: Miss Spence
Pseudonym: A Lady
Pseudonym: The Author of Summer Excursions . . . .
EIS began publishing just before the end of the eighteenth century and continued for twenty-five years. She issued novels, shorter fiction, and travel books, the latter put together from letters sent to friends in the course of summer excursions around England, Wales, and Scotland (her native country). Her fiction sometimes draws on anecdotes from life, both recent and historical or pseudo-historical. As an author she is not distinguished, but her interest in circulating information about other women writers gives her some significance for women's literary history.

Connections

Connections Author name Sort descending Excerpt
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger
At the same period EOB was a friend of another miscellaneous writer, Elizabeth Isabella Spence , who entertained in the same eccentric, low-budget style. These two elderly ladies (Spence was ten years older than Benger)...
Residence Marianne Chambers
She seems to have gone on living in Bristol, with which Elizabeth Isabella Spence identified her in 1809.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Summer Excursions. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme.
71
Literary responses Marianne Chambers
The Critical Review, oddly, thought the play lacked comedy and had succeeded on stage because of its morality. It judged it a highly creditable first attempt, and hoped that MC would one day or...
Publishing Ann Batten Cristall
Subscribers included Anna Letitia Barbauld and her brother , Ann Jebb , the future Amelia Opie , Anna Maria Porter , Mary Wollstonecraft and her sister, Mary Hays and her sister, a Mrs Spence who...
Literary responses Eliza Fletcher
During her lifetime EF acquired a literary reputation for her life rather than her works. Elizabeth Isabella Spence wrote of her as the Mrs. Montague of Edinburgh, who combined intellect with virtue and made...
Reception Christian Gray
Scottish middle-class writer Elizabeth Isabella Spence transcribed Bessy Bell and Mary Gray during a visit to Scotland in 1816 from her home in England. She printed it in 1817 in her Letters from the North...
Literary responses Margaret Holford
Elizabeth Isabella Spence praised this poem in print not long after its appearance (though she conceded that its view of Wallace was not so accurate as that of Jane Porter 's almost contemporaneous rendering in...
Friends, Associates Christian Isobel Johnstone
The novelist Elizabeth Isabella Spence stayed with CIJ in Dunfermline; she knew Johnstone's first novel and called her home the abode of genius.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Letters from the North Highlands, During the Summer 1816. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown.
303
Family and Intimate relationships Isabella Kelly
IK was related to two other writers: James Fordyce (her uncle) and Elizabeth Isabella Spence , a cousin.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder.
under James Fordyce
Friends, Associates L. E. L.
By the time LEL began living alone, she was well-known in literary circles. She became a good friend of Emma Roberts and Rosina Bulwer-Lytton around this time, and gradually became a recognized London public figure...
Friends, Associates Lady Caroline Lamb
LCL 's friendships with women writers (besides Morgan) would surprise anyone not taking her seriously as a writer. When Germaine de Staël visited England, Lady Caroline was delighted to find her wearing a hat with...
Literary responses Catharine Macaulay
This reflective, original work had an important influence on Mary Wollstonecraft . Wollstonecraft wrote the notice of it in the Analytical Review, calling the author the woman of the greatest abilities . ....
Birth Christian Milne
Christian Ross (later CM ) was born on this day, according to what she specifically told Elizabeth Isabella Spence , at Inverness in Scotland.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Letters from the North Highlands, During the Summer 1816. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown.
57
Friends, Associates Christian Milne
CM was visited at her home by the novelist and travel-writer Elizabeth Isabella Spence (who was Scots-born though living in England, and who took a great interest both in her life-story and in her poetry).
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Letters from the North Highlands, During the Summer 1816. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown.
52
Family and Intimate relationships Christian Milne
Elizabeth Isabella Spence later called him a common carpenter.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Letters from the North Highlands, During the Summer 1816. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown.
56
In the course of his sea voyages he was twice captured by the Americans, and lost his clothes and the wages due to him.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Letters from the North Highlands, During the Summer 1816. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown.
62

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. A Traveller’s Tale of the Last Century. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1819.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Dame Rebecca Berry. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green , 1827.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Helen Sinclair. T. Cadell, jun. and W. Davies, 1799.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. How to be Rid of a Wife, and The Lily of Annandale: Tales. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1823.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Letters from the North Highlands, During the Summer 1816. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1817.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Old Stories. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row, 1822.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Sketches of the Present Manners, Customs, and Scenery of Scotland. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1811.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Summer Excursions. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1809.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. The Curate and His Daughter; A Cornish Tale. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row, 1813.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. The Nobility of the Heart. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1805.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. The Spanish Guitar. W. McDowall, 1814.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. The Wedding Day. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1807.