Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger

15 June 1775 - 09 January 1827

EOB , a writer of the Romantic period, remains best-known for her precocious yet astonishingly mature Female Geniad (a poem celebrating women writers); but her other works in poetry, fiction, history, and memoirs show a steady concern with women's history and women's tradition which is almost equally remarkable.

Milestones

Shortly before 15 June 1775

EOB was born at West Camel in Somerset.

Lucy Aikin gave her birthplace as Wells (a larger place, not far away).

The Monthly Repository. Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme.

1 n.s., 1827.126

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Aikin, Lucy, and Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger. “Memoir of Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger”. Memoirs of the Life of Anne Boleyn, 3rdrd ed, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1827.

By 23 June 1791

The teenage EOB wrote The Female Geniad, a poem in celebration of women, published the same year with her name and age.

Benger, Elizabeth Ogilvy. The Female Geniad. T. Hookham, J. Carpenter, and G. Kearsley, 1791.

title-page

About January 1825

EOB pursued the topic of lives of female monarchs in Memoirs of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia , Daughter of King James the First.

This book was listed as preparing for publication in the Gentleman's Magazine, December 1824.

Benger, Elizabeth Ogilvy. Memoirs of Elizabeth Stuart. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1825.

title-page

Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.

94 (1824): 2: 546

9 January 1827

After a long endurance of ill-health, EOB died in London following only a short illness.

Feminist Companion Archive.

Aikin, Lucy, and Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger. “Memoir of Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger”. Memoirs of the Life of Anne Boleyn, 3rdrd ed, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1827.

The Monthly Repository. Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme.

1 n.s., 1827.127

Biography

Shortly before 15 June 1775

EOB was born at West Camel in Somerset.

Lucy Aikin gave her birthplace as Wells (a larger place, not far away).

The Monthly Repository. Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme.

1 n.s., 1827.126

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Aikin, Lucy, and Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger. “Memoir of Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger”. Memoirs of the Life of Anne Boleyn, 3rdrd ed, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1827.

She was her parents' only child to survive.