Isabella Kelly

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IK , who published during the very late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century, was a poet and a leading Minerva Press novelist in gothic and other modes.
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press.
She also wrote a couple of pedagogic books for children (one of them a French grammar), at least one magazine story, and a memoir of a friend.

Milestones

Shortly before 4 May 1759

Isabella Fordyce (later IK ) was born in (she said) the ruined castle of Cairnburgh in the Hebrides.
She suggested to the Royal Literary Fund that she was born in 1758, then in 1848 claimed that she was now ninety. She seems to have been exaggerating her great age by a year or so.
Archives of the Royal Literary Fund, 1790-1918.
Nicholls, C. S., editor. The Dictionary of National Biography: Missing Persons. Oxford University Press.

25 June 1857

IK died in London following an accident.
In view of her dealings with the Royal Literary Fund, the old DNB was probably wrong to think her old age was prosperous, though she did have a successful son.
Nicholls, C. S., editor. The Dictionary of National Biography: Missing Persons. Oxford University Press.

Biography

Birth and Family

Shortly before 4 May 1759

Isabella Fordyce (later IK ) was born in (she said) the ruined castle of Cairnburgh in the Hebrides.
She suggested to the Royal Literary Fund that she was born in 1758, then in 1848 claimed that she was now ninety. She seems to have been exaggerating her great age by a year or so.
Archives of the Royal Literary Fund, 1790-1918.
Nicholls, C. S., editor. The Dictionary of National Biography: Missing Persons. Oxford University Press.

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