Elizabeth Meeke

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Standard Name: Meeke, Elizabeth
Birth Name: Elizabeth Allen
Nickname: Bessy
Married Name: Elizabeth Meeke
Indexed Name: Mrs Meeke
Indexed Name: Mrs Meek
Self-constructed Name: Mrs Bruce
Pseudonym: Gabrielli
Pseudonym: The Author of The Mysterious Wife
Pseudonym: The Author of The Sicilian
EM , who was not correctly identified until 2013, was unusually prolific among novelists (twenty-six titles), children's writers, and translators of the Romantic period. (She also compiled an anthology for children.) She issued through the Minerva Press an output of fiction which exceeds that of any other novelist of the time except Sir Walter Scott and Barbara Hofland .
Garside, Peter. “The English Novel in the Romantic Era: Consolidation and Dispersal”. The English Novel 1770-1829, edited by Peter Garside et al., Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 2: 15 - 103.
2: 64
She used her own name, a regular pseudonym, and occasional anonymity. She is shameless in her use of improbable plot twists, but highly intelligent in authorial comments.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Education Mary Russell Mitford
MRM was said to have learned to read by the time she was three. In January 1806 she got through fifty-five volumes, including books by Sarah Harriet Burney , Maria Edgeworth , Elizabeth Hamilton ,...
Family and Intimate relationships Frances Burney
Of FB 's three step-siblings the youngest, Elizabeth Allen (later Meeke) , repeatedly brought scandal on her family. Frances expressed dismay and revulsion when Elizabeth left her husband to go off with another man. She...
Family and Intimate relationships Sarah Harriet Burney
Her very obscure half-sister Elizabeth , who horrified her family by leaving her highly unsuitable husband (married at fifteen) for a life of non-respectability, has now been identified as the popular and highly prolific novelist...
Intertextuality and Influence Angela Brazil
While the literature curriculum at AB 's own school seems to have featured all or almost all male writers, her works replicate many favourite motifs from women-authored adult fiction of a century before her. In...
Publishing Mary Collyer
Joseph Collyer completed this unfinished work after his wife died. Like her previous translation, it was described on its title-page as Attempted from the German.
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. 18 July 2011, http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.
It went through a large number of editions. In 1821...
Publishing Anne Francis
She quoted Pindar in Greek on the title page, and dedicated the work in a full-page inscription to John Parkhurst of Epsom, author of a Hebrew lexicon,
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
as a small testament to his merit, and...
Textual Production Mary Berry
The same year, presumably not by coincidence, the Minerva Press published a translation by Elizabeth Meeke : The Unpublished Correspondence of Madame du Deffand.
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.
Textual Production Anne Burke
AB used her name (Mrs. Burke) on the title-page of her last known work, The Secret of the Cavern, A Novel, published at the Minerva Press .
An advertisement for a different...
Textual Production Eliza Parsons
Several sources, both early nineteenth-century and late twentieth-century, attribute this novel to Mrs [Elizabeth] Meeke , even though the publisher, place of publication, and title-page mention of previous works all firmly tie it to EP

Timeline

1799: French novelist Sophie de Cottin published...

Writing climate item

1799

French novelist Sophie de Cottin published the first of her five highly popular novels, Claire d'Albe.
Finch, Alison. “Review of Sophie Cottins Claire dAlbe and Michael J. Calls study of Cottin”. Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Vol.
17
, No. 1, Oct. 2004, pp. 134-7.
135

Texts

Meeke, Elizabeth. "There is a Secret, Find it Out!". Lane, Newman, 1808, 4 vols.
Ducray-Duménil, François-Guillaume. A Tale of Mystery. Translator Meeke, Elizabeth, Lane and Newman, 1803, 4 vols.
Meeke, Elizabeth. Amazement. Lane, Newman, 1804, 3 vols.
Meeke, Elizabeth. Anecdotes of the Altamont Family. William Lane, 1800, 4 vols.
Meeke, Elizabeth. Conscience. A. K. Newman, 1814, 4 vols.
Meeke, Elizabeth. Count St. Blancard. William Lane at the Minerva Press, 1795, 3 vols.
Meeke, Elizabeth. Count St. Blancard. Facsimile edition, Arno Press, 1977, 3 vols.
Meeke, Elizabeth. Ellesmere. William Lane, 1799, 4 vols.
Varma, Devendra P., and Elizabeth Meeke. “Foreword”. Count St. Blancard, Arno Press, 1977, p. v - xiv.
Meeke, Elizabeth. Harcourt. William Lane, 1799, 4 vols.
Meeke, Elizabeth. Independence. Lane and Newman, 1802, 4 vols.
Garrett, John, and Elizabeth Meeke. “Introduction”. Count St. Blancard, Arno Press, 1977, p. xv - xxix.
Ducray-Duménil, François-Guillaume, and Sophie de Cottin. Julien; and, Elizabeth. Translator Meeke, Elizabeth, Lane, Newman, 1807, 4 vols.
Meeke, Elizabeth. Langhton Priory. Lane, Newman, 1809, 4 vols.
Lafontaine, August Heinrich Julius. Lobenstein Village. Translators Meeke, Elizabeth and Jeanne-Isabelle-Pauline Polier de Bottens, baronne de Montolieu, Lane, Newman, 1804, 4 vols.
Meeke, Elizabeth. Matrimony. A. K. Newman, 1812, 4 vols.
Meeke, Elizabeth. Midnight Weddings. William Lane, 1802, 3 vols.
Meeke, Elizabeth. Palmira and Ermance. William Lane at the Minerva Press, 1797, 3 vols.
Meeke, Elizabeth. Something Odd!. Lane, Newman, 1804, 3 vols.
Meeke, Elizabeth. Something Strange. Lane, Newman, 1806, 4 vols.
Meeke, Elizabeth. Stratagems Defeated. A. K. Newman, 1811, 4 vols.
Meeke, Elizabeth. The Abbey of Clugny. William Lane at the Minerva Press, 1796, 3 vols.
Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb. The Messiah. Translators Collyer, Mary and Elizabeth Meeke, F. C. and J. Rivington, 1821.
Meeke, Elizabeth. The Mysterious Husband. William Lane, 1801, 4 vols.
Meeke, Elizabeth. The Mysterious Wife. William Lane at the Minerva Press, 1797, 4 vols.