Elizabeth Hervey

01 January 1748 - 01 January 1820

Elizabeth Hervey was the author of six novels published between 1788 and 1814, besides one more, extant in a carefully-bound manuscript, which never reached print. They have something in them of sentiment and something of satire; one has links with the Irish nationalist movement. Her reputation has been overshadowed by her half-brother William Beckford 's two spoofs on the popular novel, which are far less directly connected with her writing than has been supposed.

Milestones

About 1748

Elizabeth Marsh (the future Elizabeth Hervey) was born, the only child of her parents. (She later had a half-brother, who became a celebrity.)

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.

22 April 1788

Elizabeth Hervey 's anonymous first book, Melissa and Marcia; or, the Sisters: A Novel, issued by William Lane with a quotation from Akenside on its title-page, was advertised as published.

Garside, Peter. “The English Novel in the Romantic Era: Consolidation and Dispersal”. The English Novel 1770-1829, edited by Peter Garside et al., Oxford University Press, pp. 2: 15 - 103.

1: 441

Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.

65 (1788): 466

January 1814

Elizabeth Hervey published her final novel, Amabel; or, Memoirs of A Woman of Fashion, to which for the first time she set her name (on the dedication, not the title-page).

Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.

4th ser. 5 (1814): 107

Garside, Peter. “The English Novel in the Romantic Era: Consolidation and Dispersal”. The English Novel 1770-1829, edited by Peter Garside et al., Oxford University Press, pp. 2: 15 - 103.

2: 399

1820

Elizabeth Hervey died, six years after her last novel, which was the first she ever published under her own name.

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.

Biography

Birth and Family

About 1748

Elizabeth Marsh (the future Elizabeth Hervey) was born, the only child of her parents. (She later had a half-brother, who became a celebrity.)

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.