Elizabeth Hervey

01 January 1748 - 01 January 1820

Standard Name: Hervey, Elizabeth,, 1748 - 1820

Birth Name: Elizabeth Marsh

Pseudonym: The Author of Melissa and Marcia

Married Name: Elizabeth Harvie

Elizabeth Hervey was the author of six novels published between 1788 and 1814, besides one more, extant in a carefully-bound manuscript, which never reached print. They have something in them of sentiment and something of satire; one has links with the Irish nationalist movement. Her reputation has been overshadowed by her half-brother William Beckford 's two spoofs on the popular novel, which are far less directly connected with her writing than has been supposed.

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Connections

Connections Sort descending	Author name	Excerpt
Family and Intimate relationships	William Beckford	The novelist Elizabeth Hervey , whose writing WB apparently scorned, was his legitimate elder half-sister, his mother's daughter by a previous marriage. Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/. under Beckford the elder
Textual Production	Elizabeth Cavendish Duchess of Devonshire	OCLC records that the catalogue of the library at the University of Cincinnatti ascribes to Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire (wrongly) a reprint of Elizabeth Hervey 's The Mourtray Family. A Novel (which appeared in January...
Textual Production	Jane West	JW has had ascribed to her Elizabeth Hervey 's The History of Ned Evans, 1796, and The Church of St Siffrid, 1797. Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press, 2000, 2 vols. 1: 678 Thame, David. “Cooking up a Story: Jane West, Prudentia Homespun, and the Consumption of Fiction”. Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 16 , No. 2, Jan. 2004, pp. 217-42. 232n48 The Miss West who published The Two Marillos...

Timeline

After 31 March 1796

William Beckford burlesqued women writers and attacked reactionary government in his novel Modern Novel Writing, or the Elegant Enthusiast; and Interesting Emotions of Arabella Bloomville. A Rhapsodical Romance; Interspersed with Poetry, published as Lady...

By 22 July 1797

William Beckford published a second and more marked burlesque attack on women's writing: Azemia: A Descriptive and Sentimental Novel. Interspersed with Pieces of Poetry.

Beckford, William. Azemia. Sampson Low, 1797, 2 vols.

1: 21; 2: 43, 61, 236ff

Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.

2nd ser. 20 (1797): 470

Texts

Hervey, Elizabeth, 1748 - 1820. Amabel; or, Memoirs of A Woman of Fashion. Colburn, 1814, 4 vols.

Hervey, Elizabeth, 1748 - 1820. “Introduction”. The History of Ned Evans (1796), edited by Helena Kelly, Pickering and Chatto, 2010, p. vii - xxii.

Hervey, Elizabeth, 1748 - 1820. Louisa. A Novel. T. Hookham, 1790, 3 vols.

Hervey, Elizabeth, 1748 - 1820. Melissa and Marcia; or, the Sisters: A Novel. William Lane, 1788, 2 vols.

Hervey, Elizabeth, 1748 - 1820. The Church of St. Siffrid. G. G. and J. Robinson, 1797, 4 vols.

Hervey, Elizabeth, 1748 - 1820. The History of Ned Evans. G. G. and J. Robinson, 1796, 4 vols.

Hervey, Elizabeth, 1748 - 1820. The History of Ned Evans. G. G. and J. Robinson, 1797, 4 vols.

Hervey, Elizabeth, 1748 - 1820. The History of the Mourtray Family. A Novel. R. Faulder, 1800, 4 vols.