Eglinton Wallace

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EW 's career in print spanned less than a decade. She began in 1787, with a published comedy and a contribution to the controversy over Goethe 's sentimental novel Werter a poem and a statement of her own opinion. She continued writing plays, and from 1792 a number of prose commentaries (one of them entitled a sermon) on the moral and political state of the nation in the age of revolutions.
  • BirthName: Eglinton or Eglintoun Maxwell
    Her given name is rendered in a Maxwell family tree on Ancestry.co.uk (which, however, gives her dates as 1754-94) and by The Peerage as Eglintoun. A report of her marriage has Eglantina.
    The Annual Register.
    158
    It seems likely that she was christened to mark the family connection with the Earls of Eglinton (her paternal grandmother was a daughter of the ninth Earl). Boswell's editors Frederick A. Pottle and Irma S. Lustig believed Eglinton to be a much more likely form than Eglantine. Yet their editions, and most other sources including the ODNB, give her name as Eglantine.
    Boswell, James, 1740 - 1795. Boswell: The English Experiment, 1785-1789. Editors Lustig, Irma S. and Frederick A. Pottle, Heinemann, 1986.
    208n1
    Lustig, Irma S. letter to Isobel Grundy, with notes on Eglinton Wallace. 7 Apr. 1986.
    Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

  • Nickname: Betty
  • Married: Wallace
  • Pseudonym: Lady W-ll-ce
  • Titled: Lady
    She continued to call herself Lady Wallace even after being divorced.

Milestones

About 1750 or possibly 1754

Eglinton Maxwell (later EW ) was born a youngest child at Monreith in Wigtownshire, Scotland: probably, that is, at Myrton Castle (now in ruins) since the present Monreith House on the estate was built only after her eldest brother inherited.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

After June 1787

EW made an early venture into print by contributing to the controversy swirling around Goethe 's Werter: A Letter to a Friend, with a Poem called, The Ghost of Werter.
Wallace, Eglinton. A Letter to a Friend, with a Poem called, The Ghost of Werter. T. Hookham, 1787.
16

1795

EW 's The Whim, A Comedy, having been, most unusually, denied a licence by John Larpent , the official censor (husband of the diarist Anna Margaretta Larpent ), was printed at Margate in Kent with an indignant Address from the author.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
48

28 March 1803

EW died at Munich in Bavaria.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Biography

Birth and Family

About 1750 or possibly 1754

Eglinton Maxwell (later EW ) was born a youngest child at Monreith in Wigtownshire, Scotland: probably, that is, at Myrton Castle (now in ruins) since the present Monreith House on the estate was built only after her eldest brother inherited.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

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