Amelia Opie

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Standard Name: Opie, Amelia
Birth Name: Amelia Alderson
Married Name: Amelia Opie
Pseudonym: N.
AO , who was publishing at the end of the eighteenth century and during the earlier nineteenth century, is best known as a novelist, but was also a dramatist, poet, and short-story writer. The opinions expressed in her writings are often reactionary in gender terms, though she was brought up a Unitarian and later became a Quaker and an active Abolitionist.
Photograph of a painting of Amelia Opie by her husband, John Opie, 1798. She is depicted from the waist up, against a background that is mainly dark with a landscape scene visible in the distance. She wears a simple white dress with a V-shaped neckline that is trimmed with white ruffles. Her brown hair is pulled back, with bangs, and a braid across the top, acting as a headband. She holds a straw hat wrapped in gauzy black fabric in her lap. National Portrait Gallery.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Wealth and Poverty Mary Russell Mitford
The prime movers of this achievement were Henry F. Chorley (who later edited her letters) and the Rev. William Harness ; the name of Queen Victoria headed the list of subscribers.
Mudge, Bradford Keyes, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 116. Gale Research.
116: 195
Pigrome, Stella. “Mary Russell Mitford”. The Charles Lamb Bulletin, Vol.
66
, Charles Lamb Society, pp. 53-62.
54
It...
Travel Anne Plumptre
Taking advantage of the new freedom of English people to visit post-Revolutionary France, she joined forces with John and Amelia Opie to travel first to Paris. She stayed there for eight months (not enough...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Clara Balfour
She devotes a chapter to each woman of sterling qualities . . . . in the hope that studious habits, intellectual pursuits, domestic industry, and sound religious principles, may be promoted and conformed by such...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Julia Kavanagh
In this second work of women's literary history, JK once again limits herself to the novel. Her canon comprises ten authors, from Aphra Behn to Sydney Morgan by way of Sarah Fielding , Frances Burney
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Harriet Martineau
Among her subjects are Lady Byron (an occasion for HM to deplore Byron 's conduct and influence), Mary Berry , Mary Russell Mitford , Charlotte Brontë , Jane Marcet , Amelia Opie , Mary Somerville
Textual Production Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson
SSW published The Ruffian Boy; or, Castle of Waldemar. A Venetian Tale, which came from Amelia Opie by way of a stage adaptation in melodrama form that did well at the new Surrey Theatre
Textual Production Barbara Hofland
BH 's correspondence with Mary Russell Mitford (whose earliest surviving letter dates from 25 May 1820) reveals her as an active and eclectic reader. The two women exchanged responses to Anna Maria Porter , Amelia Opie
Textual Production Jeanette Winterson
In 1986 JW supplied an appreciative introduction for Pandora 's edition of Amelia Opie 's novel Adeline Mowbray, 1805.
Winterson, Jeanette, and Amelia Opie. “Introduction”. Adeline Mowbray, Pandora Press, p. v - viii.
Textual Production Charlotte Nooth
His De la littérature des Nègres in its original form reflects internationalism, anglophilia, and perhaps even proto-feminism. The title-page quotes Mary Robinson . The roll of honour of white activists for abolition and racial equality...
Textual Production Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington
This work involved her in finding—and engaging in voluminous correspondence with—contributors (who often were or became her personal friends), such as Anna Maria Hall , Felicia Hemans , Amelia Opie , Mary Russell Mitford ,...
Textual Production Margaret Holford
The American-born British officer Spencer Thomas Vassall, aged forty, was mortally wounded while leading his troops at the storming of Montevideo on 3 February 1807. His body was brought home and buried at Bristol under...
Textual Production Isabella Kelly
IK 's first, anonymous novel, Madeline; or, The Castle of Montgomery, was advertised as just published, in the same year as her first book of poetry.
Amelia Opie re-used the first part of this...
Textual Production Anne Thackeray Ritchie
ATR 's A Book of Sibyls considered the lives and works of Anna Letitia Barbauld , Maria Edgeworth , Amelia Opie , and Jane Austen .
Callow, Steven D. “A Biographical Sketch of Lady Anne Thackeray Ritchie”. Virginia Woolf Quarterly, Vol.
2
, pp. 285-7.
289
Textual Production Ann Batten Cristall
That year Dyer also recommended ABC 's poems to Joseph Cottle of Bristol, and two years later, by May 1799, he proposed to supply Robert Southey with something by ABC , and something by Amelia Opie
Textual Features Catherine Gore
The title-page quotes Byron pronouncing shame to the land of the Gaul.
Gore, Catherine. The Lettre de Cachet; and, The Reign of Terror. J. Andrews.
title-page
A preface combats the general prejudice against a single volume
Gore, Catherine. The Lettre de Cachet; and, The Reign of Terror. J. Andrews.
iii
by citing works of fiction which are short but widely admired...

Timeline

4 April 1788: At about the time that he lost his religious...

Writing climate item

4 April 1788

At about the time that he lost his religious faith, William Godwin began keeping a diary, which he continued almost daily until 26 March 1836, only two weeks before he died.

After 1 February 1793: An organisation calling itself the Friends...

National or international item

After 1 February 1793

An organisation calling itself the Friends of Peace began campaigning in tracts and pamphlets against the war with France (declared on this day).

June 1793: An enterprising printer and freemason, John...

Writing climate item

June 1793

An enterprising printer and freemason, John Wharlton Bunney , put out the first number of The Free-Mason's Magazine, or General and Complete Library.

1 April 1819: The Peace Society (founded in 1816) began...

National or international item

1 April 1819

The Peace Society (founded in 1816) began publishing a periodical, The Herald of Peace.

1868: Emily Taylor (1795-18), who is remembered...

Writing climate item

1868

Emily Taylor (1795-18), who is remembered for books connected with her school-teaching career, published Memories of some Contemporary Poets, with Selections from their Writings, with a good representation of women among her subjects (from...

February 1895: Grant Allen published his best-selling novel...

Writing climate item

February 1895

Grant Allen published his best-selling novel entitled The Woman Who Did; it was Keynotes Series no. 8.

May 1992: The Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century British...

Women writers item

May 1992

The Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers Association held its first annual conference. Thereafter the conference was held at a different American location each year.
Parker, Pamela Corpron. “A Conference of Our Own: on the 20th Anniversary of the BWWA”. The Female Spectator, Vol.
16
, No. 1, p. 6.
6

Texts

Opie, Amelia. Adeline Mowbray. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1805.
Opie, Amelia. Adeline Mowbray. Editors King, Shelley and John B. Pierce, Oxford University Press, 1999.
Opie, Amelia. Dangers of Coquetry. William Lane, 1790.
Opie, Amelia. Detraction Displayed. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green; S. Wilkin, 1828.
Opie, Amelia. Elegy to the Memory of the late Duke of Bedford. T. N. Longman, 1802.
Opie, Amelia. Illustrations of Lying, in all its Branches. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1825.
Winterson, Jeanette, and Amelia Opie. “Introduction”. Adeline Mowbray, Pandora Press, 1986, p. v - viii.
Opie, Amelia. “Introduction”. Adeline Mowbray, edited by Shelley King and John B. Pierce, Oxford University Press, 1999, p. i - xxix.
Opie, Amelia. “Introduction”. The Collected Poems of Amelia Alderson Opie, edited by Shelley King and John B. Pierce, Oxford University Press, 2009, p. xxxvii - lxx.
Opie, Amelia. Lays for the Dead. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1834.
Opie, Amelia. Letter to Elizabeth Fry.
Opie, Amelia. Madeline. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1822.
Opie, Amelia, and John Opie. “Memoir”. Lectures on Painting, edited by Prince Hoare and Prince Hoare, Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1809.
Opie, Amelia, and Cecilia Brightwell. Memorials of the Life of Amelia Opie. Fletcher and Alexander, 1854.
Opie, Amelia. New Tales. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1818.
Opie, Amelia. Poems. T. N. Longman and O. Rees, 1802.
Opie, Amelia. Simple Tales. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1806.
Opie, Amelia. Tales of Real Life. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1813.
Opie, Amelia. Tales of the Heart. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1820.
Opie, Amelia. Tales of the Pemberton Family. Harvey and Darton; S. Wilkin, 1825.
Opie, Amelia. Temper; or, Domestic Scenes. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1812.
Opie, Amelia. The Black Man’s Lament. Harvey and Darton, 1826.
Opie, Amelia. The Collected Poems of Amelia Alderson Opie. Editors King, Shelley and John B. Pierce, Oxford University Press, 2009.
Opie, Amelia. The Father and Daughter. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1801.
Wilkinson, Sarah Scudgell, and Amelia Opie. The Ruffian Boy. J. Bailey, 1800.