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
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...
Intertextuality and Influence Mary Charlton
The New London Review ranked this novel much above mediocrity although over-crowded with incident. It felt that MC had made an error of judgement in putting into the mouths of her inferior personages what it...
Intertextuality and Influence Charlotte Smith
Sales were unexpectedly brisk. Reviews were positive and most emphasised that the stories here were true.
Smith, Charlotte. “Introduction”. The Works of Charlotte Smith, edited by Michael Garner et al., Pickering and Chatto, p. xxix - xxxvii.
xxxvi
The Critical Review, however, thought they would be equally interesting whether they should turn out to be...
Leisure and Society Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger
Late in life EOB ran a kind of salon which was remarkable for being bohemian and operating on a shoestring: with tea rather than wine (unlike the lavish salons of contemporary society hostesses like Lady Holland
Leisure and Society Mary Wollstonecraft
The painter John Opie did a portrait of her at this time (now in Tate Britain ) which shows her wearing a fashionable, curled white wig. This seems to have been a studio prop, since...
Literary responses Hester Mulso Chapone
Her brother John wrote of the Praises that resound on all Sides following the publication of this book, though he regretted that reviewers, in praising the moral content, had ignored the literary style.
Myers, Sylvia Harcstark. The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship, and the Life of the Mind in Eighteenth-Century England. Clarendon.
231
Recently Sylvia Harcstark Myers
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...
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...
Literary responses Anna Eliza Bray
The work sold well and received favourable reviews.
Bray, Anna Eliza. Autobiography of Anna Eliza Bray. Editor Kempe, John A., Chapman and Hall.
200
In 1845 Amelia Opie wrote to AEB to confess that she had read the book four times and [meant] to read it again.
Mudge, Bradford Keyes, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 116. Gale Research.
116: 54
She...
politics Anne Plumptre
Three years later, in July 1794, both sisters stood on a platform with Amelia Alderson , providing support as she made an anti-Whig, pro-Jacobin speech at Norwich.
Plumptre, Anne. “Introduction”. Something New, edited by Deborah McLeod, Broadview, p. vii - xxix.
ix-x
politics Marion Reid
In June 1840, MR attended the General Anti-Slavery Convention in London, together with Anna Brownell Jameson , Amelia Opie , and Lady Byron . She was the only Scotswoman present.
Johnston, Judith. Anna Jameson: Victorian, Feminist, Woman of Letters. Scolar Press.
xii
Ewan, Elizabeth et al. The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women : From the Earliest Times to 2004. Edinburgh University Press.
MR was shocked...
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
politics Annabella Plumptre
Three years later, in July 1794, the sisters stood on a platform with Amelia Alderson , providing support as she made an anti-Whig, pro-Jacobin speech at Norwich.
Plumptre, Anne. “Introduction”. Something New, edited by Deborah McLeod, Broadview, p. vii - xxix.
ix-x
Publishing Sarah Harriet Burney
While struggling to finish this work, SHB called it my own eternal rubbish
Burney, Sarah Harriet. The Letters of Sarah Harriet Burney. Editor Clark, Lorna J., University of Georgia Press.
130
and my long plague.
Burney, Sarah Harriet. The Letters of Sarah Harriet Burney. Editor Clark, Lorna J., University of Georgia Press.
153
By October 1811 she felt she had her plot organised and almost all her allocations of...
Publishing Ann Batten Cristall
Subscribers included Anna Letitia Barbauld and her brother , Ann Jebb , the future Amelia Opie , Anna Maria Porter , Mary Wollstonecraft and her sister, Mary Hays and her sister, a Mrs Spence who...

Timeline

No timeline events available.

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.