Eliza Parsons

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Writing for money in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, EP produced about twenty novels comprising (she said) sixty-five volumes, which may have been reckoned to include her play and six volumes of novels translated from French. All her fiction is didactic, and the works which are not sentimental are gothic. She began as a heavy-handed stylist and never ceased to over-write, but she was skilled in hooking and holding readers. She was popular with the public though she had to be content with faint praise from reviewers, who often commented on her defective grammar.

Milestones

By 4 April 1739

Eliza Philp (later Parsons) was born at Plymouth in Devon, an only daughter. This was the date of her baptism.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Hoeveler, Diane Long, and Eliza Parsons. “Introduction”. The Castle of Wolfenbach, edited by Diane Long Hoeveler and Diane Long Hoeveler, Valancourt Books, p. vii - xvii.
vii
Morton, Karen. A Life Marketed as Fiction. An Analysis of the Works of Eliza Parsons. Valancourt Books.
7

31 March 1790

EP , whose husband had died leaving her the support of her family, dated the dedication to her first, epistolary novel, The History of Miss Meredith, published by this August with a fashionable subscription list.
Parsons, Eliza. The History of Miss Meredith. Hookham.
1: prelims
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
70 (1790): 219

About October 1793

EP made some pretence to be translating from an exotic original in her first gothic novel, The Castle of Wolfenbach; A German Story.
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press.
1: 592
OCLC WorldCat. http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

1807

EP published apparently her final work, The Convict, or Navy Lieutenant. A Novel.
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.

5 February 1811

EP died at Leytonstone near London.
Varma, Devendra P., and Eliza Parsons. “Introduction”. The Mysterious Warning, Folio Press, p. vii - xvi.
ix

Biography

Birth and Family

By 4 April 1739

Eliza Philp (later Parsons) was born at Plymouth in Devon, an only daughter. This was the date of her baptism.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Hoeveler, Diane Long, and Eliza Parsons. “Introduction”. The Castle of Wolfenbach, edited by Diane Long Hoeveler and Diane Long Hoeveler, Valancourt Books, p. vii - xvii.
vii
Morton, Karen. A Life Marketed as Fiction. An Analysis of the Works of Eliza Parsons. Valancourt Books.
7