Grace Elliott

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GE is not a courtesan memoirist in the usual sense, since her one surviving work, her published journal, is silent on the topic of her love-affairs. It covers exclusively her experience, mostly in Paris, from the early days of the French Revolution through to the Terror (which she barely survived). Her text, not published till a generation after her death, is a mix of history, heroicised autobiography and biographical sketches, and highly personalised political commentary.
  • BirthName: Grissel Dalrymple
  • Nickname: Dally the Tall
  • Self-constructed: Grace; Madame St Maur
  • Married: Elliott
  • Indexed: Grace Dalrymple Elliott; Grace Eliot
Portrait of Grace Elliott by Thomas Gainsborough, c. 1782. She faces the viewer with a neutral expression, wearing a low-necked, high-waisted white gown with a pink bow and blue brooch at the decolletage. Her hair is styled away from her face, frizzed and powdered, and a black ribbon tied under her chin and hangs to her bosom.

Milestones

Probably later 1754

Grissel Dalrymple (later GE ) was born in Edinburgh, supposedly at her grandparents' house, the youngest of four in her family.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
Major, Joanne, and Sarah Murden. An Infamous Mistress: The Life, Loves and Family of the Celebrated Grace Dalrymple Elliott. Pen and Sword Books, 2016.
1, 3-4

Probably 1802

GE 's posthumous editor says that Elliott was moved to begin writing down her memories of the French Revolution, at Twickenham in Middlesex, after returning from France on the signing of the Treaty of Amiens.
This account dates the treaty 1801, which would refer to its preliminaries only, so the date of her composition (like her move back to England, which was prompted by the treaty and was said to precede her writing) remains obscure.
Unknown Editor, and Grace Elliott. “Preface”. Journal of My Life during the French Revolution, The Rodale Press, 1955, p. ix - xiii.
ix

15 May 1823

GE died in the mayor's house at Ville d'Avray near Sèvres in France, after a long illness.
Major, Joanne, and Sarah Murden. An Infamous Mistress: The Life, Loves and Family of the Celebrated Grace Dalrymple Elliott. Pen and Sword Books, 2016.
204
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

By 8 January 1859

Richard Bentley published from manuscript GE 's Journal of My Life during the French Revolution, whose existence he had heard about from her grand-daughter.
The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870. http://replay.web.archive.org/20070714065452/http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~asp/v2/home.html.

28 January 1859

Richard Bentley followed his edition of GE 's manuscript journals with a publicising letter about them in the Times.
Feminist Companion Archive.

Biography

Birth and Family

Probably later 1754

Grissel Dalrymple (later GE ) was born in Edinburgh, supposedly at her grandparents' house, the youngest of four in her family.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
Major, Joanne, and Sarah Murden. An Infamous Mistress: The Life, Loves and Family of the Celebrated Grace Dalrymple Elliott. Pen and Sword Books, 2016.
1, 3-4

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