EH
's half-brother, the brilliant but unstable writer and gothicist William Beckford
the younger, was about twelve years her junior. In his teens in Switzerland (whose wild mountain landscapes made a deep impression on him)...
Family and Intimate relationships
Elizabeth Hervey
By autumn 1789 (only a couple of years after he had entertained her at his beloved, self-designed home) EH
's half-brother, William Beckford
, developed suspicions about her loyalty to him. By the following year...
Family and Intimate relationships
Lady Caroline Lamb
Shortly after this caper, she entered Byron's rooms, from which he was absent, and wrote in his copy of William Beckford
's Vathek, Remember me!
Douglass, Paul. Lady Caroline Lamb. Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
144
This message quickly became the title of a...
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Margravine of Anspach
She was an ornament of high society and sought out literary friends. She was, for instance, a long-term friend and correspondent of Horace Walpole
, who published her writings on his private press at Strawberry Hill
They treated the house like a smaller version of an ancestral family estate. They added various improvements, like the library at the back, which had windows in pointed gothic arches, paintings and miniatures on the...
Literary responses
Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger
William Beckford
, who had already demonstrated his hostility to women writers, annotated his copy of this work (which is now in the Beinecke Library
at Yale University
). He uses Benger as an example...
Literary responses
Elizabeth Hervey
The Critical Reviewread this pleasing and interesting story as an imitation of Burney
's Cecilia.If there is a fault, it suggested, it was the structural fault of raising and solving one difficulty...
Literary responses
Elizabeth Hervey
It has been until recently a given of literary history that William Beckford
had his half-sister in his sights in his two burlesques on women's novel-writing. The title-page of the first quotes Pope
, thus...
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...
Author summary
Elizabeth Hervey
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...
Reception
Cassandra Lady Hawke
CLH
's immediate family were warm in their admiration. Frances Burney
, who read Julia de Gramont when it was passed to her by the queen, found it all of a piece—all love, love, love...
Reception
Elizabeth Hervey
The History of Ned Evans appeared after William Beckford
's Modern Novel Writing but before his next burlesque novel, Azemia. It does not, however, look like a specific target of Azemia, a satirical...
Residence
Ruth Fainlight
The house, reached by a steep cart-track with hairpin bends, stood in an olive grove with a grapevine over the door. RF
went back to England the following autumn, and was still there when Sillitoe...
Textual Features
Sydney Owenson Lady Morgan
Italy contains guidebook material (it draws on Romantic works like William Beckford
's Italy), as well as political analysis of the country's restored anciens régimes, and of the dirty work
qtd. in
Campbell, Mary, 1917 - 2002. Lady Morgan: The Life and Times of Sydney Owenson. Pandora, 1988.
178
done by the...
Timeline
1755: Wealthy West Indian proprietor William Beckford...
Writing climate item
1755
Wealthy West Indian proprietor William Beckford
(father of the author of the same name) launched The Monitor, the first newspaper to appeal explicitly to London freeholders, that is the well-to-do urban middle class.
Hudson, Nicholas. “Discourse of Transition: Johnson, the 1750s, and the Rise of the Middle Class”. The Age of Johnson, edited by Paul J. Korshin and Jack Lynch, Vol.
13
, 2002, pp. 31-51.
32
7 June 1786: During the absence abroad of William Beckford,...
Writing climate item
7 June 1786
During the absence abroad of William Beckford
, his tutor Samuel Henley
anonymously published his own English translation of Vathek, an Oriental gothic tale which Beckford had originally written in French.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 1985.
James, Jamie. “The Caliph of Fonthill”. The American Scholar, Vol.
72
, No. 1, 1 Dec.–28 Feb. 2003, pp. 67-79.
70
After 31 March 1796: William Beckford burlesqued women writers...
Women writers item
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...
Women writers item
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. “Introduction”. Modern Novel Writing (1796) and Azemia (1797), edited by Herman Mittle Levy, Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1970.
Beckford, William. Life at Fonthill, 1807-1822, with Interludes in Paris and London. Editor Alexander, Boyd, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1957.
Beckford, William. Modern Novel Writing. G. G. and J. Robinson, 1797, 2 vols.
Beckford, William. Modern Novel Writing (1796) and Azemia (1797). Editor Levy, Herman Mittle, Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1970.
Beckford, William. The Journal of William Beckford in Portugal and Spain, 1787-1788. Rupert Hart-Davis, 1954.
Beckford, William, and Sarah Murray. “[notes]”. A Companion and Useful Guide to the Beauties in the Western Highlands of Scotland, and in the Hebrides, Printed for the Author, 1803.