Elizabeth Boyd

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EB was a versatile, ususally satirical author in the earlier half of the eighteenth century. Writing for her livelihood, she undertook a remarkable number of genres, many of which she hybridized or otherwise experimented with. Her poetry includes fantasy and political comment as well as compliments to patrons: she also wrote romance, ballad-opera, masque, and riddles..
  • BirthName: Elizabeth Boyd
  • Pseudonyms: Louisa; E— B—; Eliza; Eloisa; Bartholomew Broadbottom
Title-page of "The Happy-Unfortunate; or, The Female-Page: a Novel" by Elizabeth Boyd, 1732. Boyd gives her name in full, and adds a quotation from Delarivier Manley in which Manley is actually quoting Anne Finch. The colophon of the publisher, Thomas Edlin, is followed by the date.

Milestones

A little before 11 June 1710

A baby was born in London who was probably the writer EB .
Harper, Heather. Elizabeth Boyd, Grub Street, and patronage: a study in eighteenth century women’s writing. University of Alberta, 2003.
15

November 1726

EB , as Louisa, issued her probable first publication, Variety . . . , a poem in witty and paradoxical defence of inconstancy, plus two verse epistles, bearing the date 1727.
On the title-page EB spells her pseudonym Lovisa. The letters u and v were not yet consistently differentiated in print, but they are in most places in this text. But probably the spelling has no significance, since Boyd elsewhere spells Louisa in the conventional way.
Foxon, David F. English Verse 1701-1750. Cambridge University Press, 1975, 2 vols.
English Short Title Catalogue. http://estc.bl.uk/.

November-19 December 1744

EB dated the fictional letters which make up her periodical or pseudo-periodical, The Snail, published the following year.
Boyd, Elizabeth. The Snail. 1745.
15, 40

By January 1745

EB published a periodical or pseudo-periodical, The Snail; or, The Lady's Lucubrations. Being Entertaining Letters between a Lady at St. James's, and her Friend at Dover.
The Snail is (in 2009) listed in the English Short Title Catalogue under the title To be continued monthly, The Snail; or, the lady's lucubrations.
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
15 (1745): 56
Boyd, Elizabeth. The Snail. 1745.
title-page

Biography

A Londoner Born

A little before 11 June 1710

A baby was born in London who was probably the writer EB .
Harper, Heather. Elizabeth Boyd, Grub Street, and patronage: a study in eighteenth century women’s writing. University of Alberta, 2003.
15

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