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
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...
Friends, Associates Henry Peter, Baron Brougham
Brougham had a number of friends among women writers. He was at primary school in Edinburgh with Susan Ferrier (who, however, declined to acknowledge him later, probably for political reasons). His political work brought him...
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
Literary responses Barbara Hofland
In the early 1820s BH seems to have been at the apex of her career. She was appreciated not only by her friend Mary Russell Mitford (who believed that nobody else could combine so much...
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...
Friends, Associates Matilda Charlotte Houstoun
In later years MCH continued to maintain relations with several significant literary figures. She was once visited by Frances Trollope , whom she described as A genial, natural woman, not especially refined, but far too...
politics Anna Brownell Jameson
ABJ went to the LondonWorld Anti-Slavery Convention in the company of Lady Byron , Amelia Opie , and Marion Reid .
Johnston, Judith. Anna Jameson: Victorian, Feminist, Woman of Letters. Scolar Press.
xii
Textual Features Christian Isobel Johnstone
Johnstone's Edinburgh Magazine was heavily political in content, while Tait's was designed to have greater appeal to the general reader.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Between 1832 and 1846 (when she retired) CIJ contributed over four hundred articles to the...
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
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...
Intertextuality and Influence Maria Theresa Kemble
The title alludes to Hannah Cowley 's very popular The Belle's Stratagem, 1780. MTK 's heroine, like hers, is lively and witty. Lady Emily spars verbally with her suitor O'Donolan, and keeps her freedom...
Friends, Associates Lady Caroline Lamb
LCL 's friendships with women writers (besides Morgan) would surprise anyone not taking her seriously as a writer. When Germaine de Staël visited England, Lady Caroline was delighted to find her wearing a hat with...
Literary responses Lady Caroline Lamb
William Lamb worried intensely about the probable reception of Ada Reis, particularly the scenes in hell, and he tried to enlist William Gifford of the Quarterly as an ally in pressuring Caroline to tone...
Textual Features Elizabeth B. Lester
Both these novels feature French and Latin tags in their text, but lack epigraphs at the head of chapters. The Quakers, which Garside calls Opie -esque, is written in a confident, literary style and...
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 ,...

Timeline

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Texts

Opie, Amelia. The Warrior’s Return, and Other Poems. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1808.
Opie, Amelia. Valentine’s Eve. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1816.