Elizabeth Gilding

01 January 1744 - 21 February 1786

EG was primarily a magazine poet of the 1770s and 1780s, who also published a collected volume of her poems. Her writing deals in rapture both spiritual and erotic, in marital and maternal devotion, in guilt and despair.

Milestones

Later 1759

A verse Epitaph for General Wolfe (the poem that EG placed third in her single known volume, The Breathings of Genius, 1776) presumably dated from soon after his death in September this year.

Gilding, Elizabeth. The Breathings of Genius. W. Faden.

January 1785

The Westminster Magazine printed both The Desire and Monody, the last of its poems by Elizabeth Turner (formerly EG ). (It ceased publication in this year.)

Pitcher, Edward W. Woman’s Wit. Edwin Mellen Press.

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British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

21 February 1786

Elizabeth Turner (formerly EG ) died. On 5 March her husband preached a funeral sermon on her which he then published as Sacred Friendship: exemplified in the case of Elijah and Elisha .

Turner, Daniel. Sacred Friendship: Exemplified in the Case of Elijah and Elisha. A Sermon, preached March the 5th. on the death of Mrs. Eliza Turner. G. G. J. and J. Robinson.

title-page

Biography

Background

EG 's birth-date is not known, but since she produced an accomplished poem probably not long after September 1759, she was in all probability born by the earlier 1740s. She was her parents' first and only child.

Pitcher, Edward W. Woman’s Wit. Edwin Mellen Press.

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