Elizabeth Burnet

-
EB was a writer of personal texts: journals and letters; spiritual, philosophical, and political critique; and religious self-examination. She published one book, of meditations. Compared with other religious women writers of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, however, she was more worldly, broader in her range of interests and in her sympathies.
Photograph of a painting of Elizabeth Burnet by Sir Godfrey Kneller, c. 1707. She is depicted standing, with an outdoor background of trees, resting an elbow on pedestal. One hand is at her side; the other hand holds a small book. She is wearing a red-orange dress with white lace at the neckline and wrists, and she has her brown hair in waves on her head, with a gauzy veil trailing behind. National Portrait Gallery

Milestones

8 November 1661

Elizabeth Blake (later Burnet) was born at Arreton on the Isle of Wight, the elder of the two daughters in her family.
“FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service”. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

About 1683 or 1684

Elizabeth Berkeley (later EB)put together when I was but 2 or 3 & twenty, and then altered & inlarged over time, some rules for devotion (presumably a draft of A Method of Devotion).
Burnet, Elizabeth. “journals and papers”. Bodleian Library, MS Rawl. D. 1092, folios 111–203.
140

1708

EB published, at her own expense and anonymously, in order to do good, A Method of Devotion: or Rules for Holy and Devout Living, which she had begun more than twenty years before.
English Short Title Catalogue. http://estc.bl.uk/.
Burnet, Elizabeth. “journals and papers”. Bodleian Library, MS Rawl. D. 1092, folios 111–203.
140

3 February 1709

During one of the early eighteenth century's particularly bitter winters, EB died of pleurisy.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Biography

Birth and Background

8 November 1661

Elizabeth Blake (later Burnet) was born at Arreton on the Isle of Wight, the elder of the two daughters in her family.
“FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service”. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Please click on login button to check your access and/or enter your credentials. Alternatively if you don’t have access, please click on “Subscribe”.

Log inSubscribe