Emma Roberts

27 March 1791 - 17 September 1840

Emma Roberts , a professional writer of the earlier nineteenth century, launched her career with history and contributions to periodicals. Travelling to India provided her with the unusual opportunity to become a specialist on that country. During her years in London between her two visits to India she produced History, biography, poetry, tales, local descriptions, foreign correspondence, didactic essays, even the culinary art,

Unsigned, and Emma Roberts. “Memoir”. Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay, W. H. Allen, p. xi - xxviii.

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in addition to editing and introducing works by others. Through most of her output, India was her primary subject.

Milestones

27 March 1791

ER was born in London, the younger of two sisters. She also had an elder brother.

Until recently most sources reported her to have been born three years or so later, at Methley near Leeds, West Yorkshire, after the death of her father.

Unsigned, and Emma Roberts. “Memoir”. Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay, W. H. Allen, p. xi - xxviii.

xiv

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.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

By September 1827

ER published her first book, Memoirs of the Rival Houses of York and Lancaster, Historical and Biographical.

Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder.

Kirk, John Foster, and S. Austin Allibone, editors. A Supplement to Allibone’s Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors. J. B. Lippincott.

17 September 1840

ER died at Poona in India, where she had arrived just the day before.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Elwood, Anne Katharine. Memoirs of the Literary Ladies of England, from the Commencement of the Last Century. Henry Colburn.

346-7

1841

ER 's Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay was posthumously published in book form, with an anonymous memoir of her.

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.

Biography

Birth and Family

27 March 1791

ER was born in London, the younger of two sisters. She also had an elder brother.

Until recently most sources reported her to have been born three years or so later, at Methley near Leeds, West Yorkshire, after the death of her father.

Unsigned, and Emma Roberts. “Memoir”. Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay, W. H. Allen, p. xi - xxviii.

xiv

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.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.