Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Elizabeth Smith
-
Standard Name: Smith, Elizabeth,, 1776 - 1806
Elizabeth Smith
, a young woman of unusual intellectual gifts, aroused public interest by her early death, and by the abilities and especially the piety revealed in her posthumously published works. She was a scholar (particularly in the field of languages) rather than a writer, but her poems, letters, and reflections are worthy of interest as well as her fine translations from German and Hebrew. She was much exercised by the malign image of the learned lady, which seems to have made her uneasy about her talents and ambition, but her discussions of this issue proved empowering for many of her immediate (and publishing) successors.
She dedicated it to Henrietta Maria Bowdler
, less in honour of Bowdler herself than in honour of her friendship with and literary executorship of the scholar Elizabeth Smith
; she compares their relationship to...
Education
Margaret Gatty
Margaret and her sister were not sent to school, but were educated chiefly by her father. One important influence on Margaret was their bachelor uncle William Ryder
(who first got her started on drawing). Another...
Family and Intimate relationships
Henrietta Maria Bowdler
HMB
's mother, a baronet's heiress and an intellectual, was born Elizabeth Stuart Cotton
in about 1718. Four of her children grew up to be writers. She was an acquaintance of Elizabeth Montagu
,
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Elizabeth Stuart Bowdler
Family and Intimate relationships
Henrietta Maria Bowdler
Elizabeth Mavor
, biographer of Butler
and Ponsonby
, classes as romantic attachments HMB
's friendships with both of them, with Smith
, and with Margaret Davies
. Bowdler was, says Mavor, inclined to adopt...
Friends, Associates
Henrietta Maria Bowdler
Frances Burney
preferred HMB
, as more kind and gentle, to her sister Frances Bowdler. Burney amusingly records a visit by herself, HMB and others, to Lady Miller
of Batheaston on 8 June 1780, when...
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Hamilton
While in Wales they visited Lady Eleanor Butler
and Sarah Ponsonby
(the ladies of Llangollen) and in the Lakes they stayed with Elizabeth Smith
and her family.
Benger, Elizabeth Ogilvy. Memoirs of the late Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1818, 2 vols.
1: 152-4
Smith, Elizabeth, 1776 - 1806. Fragments, In Prose and Verse. Editor Bowdler, Henrietta Maria, Richard Cruttwell, 1811.
151
In Edinburgh in 1803...
Intertextuality and Influence
Charlotte Nooth
The novel combines domestic humour and social satire. The courtship of Eglantine Fortescue and the young officer Augustus Fitzroy is almost overshadowed by the broad-brush picture of their families and friends. Eglantine incurs disapproval first...
Intertextuality and Influence
Susanna Watts
SW
takes steps to prevent the cause of slavery entirely dominating her work, which, she announces, it will be devoted to the cause of suffering animals as well as to that of suffering men.
Watts, Susanna. The Humming Bird. I. Cockshaw, 1-2.
34
Leisure and Society
Hannah More
Once an omnivorous reader, HM
restricted her choice of books in later life, in line with her religious convictions. She delighted in William Cowper
as a poet whom I can read on Sunday.
qtd. in
Jones, Mary Gwladys. Hannah More. Cambridge University Press, 1952.
90
From...
names
Margaret Gatty
BirthName: Margaret Scott
Nickname: Meta
She probably adopted this form of her Christian name in honour of Margaretta—or Meta—Klopstock
, whose letters she had encountered through her admiration for the Klopstocks' translator, Elizabeth Smith
.
Ewing, Juliana Horatia. “Margaret Gatty, 1885”. A Celebration of Women Writers, edited by Mary Mark Ockerbloom.
EOB
writes in terms of a women's tradition: for instance, she praises Barbauld
for praising Elizabeth Rowe
. She makes confident judgements and attributions (she is sure that Lady Pakington
is the real author of...
Textual Features
Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger
This edition was published by Colburn
. EOB
's excellent scholarly introduction dwells on recent literary achievements of women. She does not explicitly identify the British ones she refers to, but they are clearly (as...
Textual Production
Henrietta Maria Bowdler
HMB
performed another labour of love in editing her friend Elizabeth Smith
's posthumous Fragments in Prose and Verse. With Some Account of Her Life and Character by H. M. Bowdler. This remarkable volume...
Textual Production
Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger
EOB
gave her name, and said on the title-page that she intended the volume as a sequel to the biography of Klopstock and his wife
by the scholar Elizabeth Smith
, which had been published posthumously.
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Smith, Elizabeth, 1776 - 1806. A Vocabulary, Hebrew, Arabic and Persian. Editor Usko, John Frederick, W. H. Lunn, 1814.
Smith, Elizabeth, 1776 - 1806. Fragments in Prose and Verse. Editor Bowdler, Henrietta Maria, Richard Cruttwell, 1808.
Smith, Elizabeth, 1776 - 1806. Fragments, in Prose and Verse. Editor Bowdler, Henrietta Maria, Richard Cruttwell, 1809.
Smith, Elizabeth, 1776 - 1806. Fragments, In Prose and Verse. Editor Bowdler, Henrietta Maria, Richard Cruttwell, 1811.
Memoirs of Frederick and Margaret Klopstock. Translator Smith, Elizabeth, 1776 - 1806, Richard Cruttwell, 1808.
Randolph, Francis, and Elizabeth, 1776 - 1806 Smith. “Preface”. The Book of Job, Richard Cruttwell, 1810.
Smith, Elizabeth, 1776 - 1806. The Book of Job. Editor Randolph, Francis, Richard Cruttwell, 1810.
