Alethea Lewis

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At first anonymously and then as Eugenia de Acton, AL published six books (five novels and one book of essays), which are linked by their title-pages regardless of the nom de plume. A separate series of five other titles, previously attributed to her, has been recently re-assigned to Frances Jacson (sometimes called Jackson). All AL 's works share a tone of didacticism and Christian piety. Their plots are overcrowded and creaky, featuring sudden rises and falls in fortune; but with conventional plotting goes, often, a strain of creative unconventionality. AL favours ostentatious literary reference and self-conscious direct address to readers and reviewers.

Milestones

19 December 1749

Alethea Brereton (later AL ) was born at Acton, near Nantwich in Cheshire.
Her place of birth is often given as Framlingham, where she grew up. The date appears clearly in the baptismal register, yet AL herself mentions her seventy-fifth birthday as 4 January 1825. The discrepancy may have arisen, though not directly, from translation from Old to New Style.
Shippen, Eliza Pearl. Eugenia de Acton (1749-1827). University of Pennsylvania Press.
3n35
Shippen, Eliza Pearl. Eugenia de Acton (1749-1827). University of Pennsylvania Press.
3n35

By October 1810

AL published, as Eugenia de Acton and with the Minerva Press , a four-volume novel entitled The Discarded Daughter. This was her last known work.
Griffiths, Ralph, and George Edward Griffiths, editors. Monthly Review. R. Griffiths.
63 (1810): 209-10
McLeod, Deborah. The Minerva Press. University of Alberta.
355

Just before 12 November 1827

AL died at Penkridge in Staffordshire, after eight years of widowhood.
Shippen, Eliza Pearl. Eugenia de Acton (1749-1827). University of Pennsylvania Press.
16

Biography

Birth and Background

19 December 1749

Alethea Brereton (later AL ) was born at Acton, near Nantwich in Cheshire.
Her place of birth is often given as Framlingham, where she grew up. The date appears clearly in the baptismal register, yet AL herself mentions her seventy-fifth birthday as 4 January 1825. The discrepancy may have arisen, though not directly, from translation from Old to New Style.
Shippen, Eliza Pearl. Eugenia de Acton (1749-1827). University of Pennsylvania Press.
3n35
Shippen, Eliza Pearl. Eugenia de Acton (1749-1827). University of Pennsylvania Press.
3n35

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