Elizabeth Elstob

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EE is noteworthy as the first female scholar in the newly opening field of the Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) language. She was also a translator, a biographer, and a promoter of learning for women and of the study of women's history and culture: in short, a feminist.
  • BirthName: Elizabeth Elstob
  • Pseudonyms: A Person of the Same Sex; Mrs Frances Smith
    She used this name in which to subscribe (for two copies) to George Ballard 's Memoirs of Eminent Ladies, published four years before her death.
    Perry, Ruth, and George Ballard. “Introduction”. Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain, Wayne State University Press, 1985, pp. 12-48.
    42

Line engraving with portrait of Elizabeth Elstob inside an initial letter G, by Simon Gribelin, from "An English-Saxon Homily on the Birth-day of St. Gregory", 1709, which she translated from Old English. She looks towards the viewer, slightly angled to her left with her head turned to her right. She wears a dress with a low neckline, and her hair is styled with curls framing her forehead and face, while the rest hangs behind her shoulders.

Milestones

29 September 1683

EE was born at Newcastle, the youngest of eight children born in her family.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

1708

EE published An Essay upon Glory—translated, as the title-page explains, from the French of Madeleine de Scudéryby a Person of the Same Sex.
English Short Title Catalogue. http://estc.bl.uk/.

1715

EE published, together, her Rudiments of Grammar for the English-Saxon Tongue and An Apology for the Study of Northern Antiquities.
English Short Title Catalogue. http://estc.bl.uk/.

3 June 1756

EE died in her seventies, after nearly twenty years as a dependent of the Duchess of Portland .
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2025, 22 vols. plus supplements.

Biography

Birth and Background

29 September 1683

EE was born at Newcastle, the youngest of eight children born in her family.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

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