Elizabeth Gunning

01 January 1769 - 20 July 1823

Standard Name: Gunning, Elizabeth

Birth Name: Elizabeth Gunning

Pseudonym: Miss Gunning

Nickname: Gunnilda

Nickname: Miss Charlemagne

Nickname: Miss Charly

Married Name: Elizabeth Plunkett

EG published, mostly during the later eighteenth century, a number of novels (including the one of her late mother 's which she finished), translations, a children's book, and two unacted plays. Many appeared before her marriage, and there has been some confusion with her mother's work. Both Gunnings are acutely class-conscious, centring many plots on wished-for ascent to the nobility (whose vices as a class they nevertheless strongly condemn): a motif which EG neatly reverses in her last.

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Connections

Connections Sort descending	Author name	Excerpt
Dedications	Jane Porter	Fraser's Magazine later ascribed to JP an anonymous gothic romance published this month, entitled The Spirit of the Elbe and dedicated to Elizabeth Gunning . Scholar Nicholas A. Joukovsky confirmed this ascription. Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press, 2000, 2 vols. 1: 772 Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/. Joukovsky, Nicholas A. “Jane Porters First Novel: The Evidence of an Unpublished Letter”. Notes and Queries, Vol. 235 , Mar. 1990, pp. 15-16. 15-17
Family and Intimate relationships	Susannah Gunning	SG 's only child, Elizabeth Gunning , born in 1769 (later, by marriage, Elizabeth Plunkett), became a novelist like her mother.
Family and Intimate relationships	Lady Charlotte Bury	Lady Charlotte was therefore a first cousin of Elizabeth Gunning (also a novelist); she was just into her teens at the time of the scandal of Elizabeth's alleged engagement to Charlotte's eldest full brother, the...
Family and Intimate relationships	Harriette Wilson	Meanwhile her next lover (whom, like the prince, she propositioned by letter) was the first man, she said, with whom she ever fell erotically in love. He represented another step up in society, being the...
Family and Intimate relationships	Susannah Gunning	In the notorious family quarrel over the courtship of Elizabeth Gunning , SG sided with her daughter against her husband . Gantz, Ida. The Pastel Portrait. Cresset Press, 1963. 121ff
Friends, Associates	Mary Robinson	MR remained devoted to the idea of female friendship. She met the artist Maria Cosway in France and they became firm friends. In her last months she wrote to the novelist Elizabeth Gunning to sympathise...
Occupation	Harriett Jay	HJ made her London debut the next month, on 22 December, in Buchanan's The Nine Days Queen. In this too she took on the lead role (this time as Lady Jane Grey ). Her...
Publishing	Hannah Brand	It was printed at Norwich and sold through London publishers. The subscription list was impressive, including Anna Letitia Barbauld , John Brand (presumably HB 's brother) of Hemingston Hall in Suffolk, who took twenty copies...
Publishing	Frances Arabella Rowden	Her book did well. Many clergy, many parents of girls in the Hans Place school, many relations of the author and of her dedicatee subscribed, plus Elizabeth Gunning , Richard Brinsley Sheridan , and Sarah Trimmer
Textual Features	Susannah Gunning	This historical tale, of a Roman father, Virginius, who exerts the ultimate control over his daughter's sexual destiny by killing her, carries oblique, disturbing reference to Elizabeth Gunning 's courtship story. In the poem the...
Textual Features	Lady Mary Wortley Montagu	All the mock eclogues (written, like most of Montagu's more ambitious poetry, in heroic couplets with the occasional triplet) target actual individuals and refer to events which were gossip of the day. Monday, Wednesday...
Textual Features	Charlotte Yonge	The second volume is again rich in women's writing. Its first item is Elizabeth Gunning 's Family Stories; or, Evenings at my Grandmother's. CY mentions with approval another item, A Puzzle for a Curious...
Textual Features	Sarah Trimmer	In addition to Catharine Cappe 's work on Sunday schools and versions of fairy stories by Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy , the magazine reviewed work by a whole library of didactic, pedagogical, or improving writers, reprinted as...
Textual Production	Susannah Gunning	SG printed for the author her defence of her daughter and attack on her husband : A Letter . . . Address'd to His Grace the Duke of Argyll. Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series. 2d ser. 1 (1791): 341
Textual Production	Susannah Gunning	SG 's final work, The Heir Apparent, A Novel, was posthumously published with her daughter 's revision and additions. Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series. 2d ser. 35 (1802): 477

Timeline

Summer 1751

The Gunning sisters arrived in London from Ireland, and created a sensation with their beauty: Maria was aged around seventeen and Elizabeth was a year younger.

Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2024, 22 vols. plus supplements.

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

Gunning, Elizabeth. Dangers through Life. J. Ebers, 1810, 3 vols.

Gunning, Elizabeth. Family Stories. B. Tabart, 1802.

Gunning, Elizabeth. Lord Fitzhenry. J. Bell, 1794, 3 vols.

Auvigny, Jean du Castre d’, and Pierre François Guyot Desfontaines. Memoirs of Madame De Barneveldt. Translator Gunning, Elizabeth, S. Low; E. Booker, 1795, 2 vols.

Montolieu, Jeanne-Isabelle-Pauline Polier de Bottens, baronne de. Sentimental Anecdotes. Translator Gunning, Elizabeth, C. Chapple, 1811, 2 vols.

Gunning, Elizabeth. The Exile of Erin. B. Crosby, 1808, 3 vols.

Gunning, Elizabeth. The Foresters. Sampson Low, 1796, 4 vols.

Gunning, Elizabeth. The Gipsy Countess. T. N. Longman and O. Rees, 1799, 4 vols.

Gunning, Susannah, and Elizabeth Gunning. The Heir Apparent. J. Ridgway and H. D. Symonds, 1802, 3 vols.

Gunning, Elizabeth. The Man of Fashion. M. Jones, 1815, 2 vols.

Gunning, Elizabeth. The Orphans of Snowdon. H. Lowndes, 1797, 3 vols.

Gunning, Elizabeth. The Packet. J. Bell, 1794, 4 vols.

Gunning, Elizabeth. The Packet. Burnside; J. Bell, 1794, 2 vols.

Gunning, Elizabeth. The Village Library. B. Crosby, 1802.

Gunning, Elizabeth. The War-Office. Published for the author, 1803, 2 vols.