Eliza Meteyard

-
Standard Name: Meteyard, Eliza
Birth Name: Eliza Meteyard
Pseudonym: Silverpen
EM , who used the pseudonym Silverpen, was a self-supporting early Victorian writer who published prolifically in a wide range of periodicals, particularly those aimed at the lower-middle and working classes, in addition to writing three novels for adults and a number of more successful stories for children. Her work suffered from the pressure to earn, but her journalism in particular is nevertheless powerful in its treatment of the economic and social ills of women. EM is best remembered now for her standard biography of the industrial potter and captain of industry Josiah Wedgwood . Some of her work was never published.
Allibone, S. Austin, editor. A Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors Living and Deceased. Gale Research, 1965.
Lightbown, Ronald W., and Eliza Meteyard. “Introduction”. The Life of Josiah Wedgwood, Cornmarket Press, 1970.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Education Jessie White Mario
She later studied at schools in Reading, and London. She favoured English poetry but her diligent studying was often overshadowed by her lack of discipline, personal disorderliness, and unruliness
Daniels, Elizabeth Adams. Jessie White Mario: Risorgimento Revolutionary. Ohio University Press, 1972.
21
in the classroom...
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Gaskell
She also liked to escape from Manchester when she was able to. She spent the evening of Christmas 1850 at William and Mary Howitt 's home in London swapping ghost stories with them and Eliza Meteyard .
Mitchell, Sally. The Fallen Angel: Chastity, Class and Women’s Reading 1835-1880. Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1981.
32
Friends, Associates Anna Maria Hall
One of AMH 's closest friends was the actress Helen Faucit , later Lady Martin. Though socially conservative in her attitudes, she was apparently more ready than her husband to achieve friendly relations with those...
Friends, Associates Matilda Hays
By her twenties, MH was well-acquainted with several prominent figures in England's social, political, and literary scene. Her circle included Mary Howitt , Eliza Meteyard , William Charles Macready , Samuel Laurence , Geraldine Jewsbury
Friends, Associates Mary Howitt
Visitors who stayed with the Howitts at The Elms included Hans Christian Andersen , Tennyson , Elizabeth Gaskell , and Eliza Meteyard , who wrote as Silver Pen. Their circle also included Charles Dickens
politics Matilda Hays
MH , along with Eliza Meteyard , sat on the council for the Whittington Club , an organization dedicated to self-improvement, and cultural and educational opportunities for women.
Gleadle, Kathryn. The Early Feminists. Macmillan, 1995.
140-1
Textual Features Elizabeth Gaskell
Fallen women were by then a cultural obsession. Caroline Bowles had treated the subject in Ellen Fitzarthur (1820). Thomas Hood had depicted both the exploitation of seamstresses in The Song of the Shirt (1843) and...
Textual Features Christian Isobel Johnstone
Johnstone's Edinburgh Magazine was heavily political in content, while Tait's was designed to have greater appeal to the general reader.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Between 1832 and 1846 (when she retired) CIJ contributed over four hundred articles to the...
Textual Production Jessie White Mario
Between 1851 and 1853 she published articles, stories, and poetry in this journal, sharing its pages with her former classmate Eliza Meteyard (or Silverpen). She often published anonymously, or with the initials J. W...
Textual Production Eliza Cook
This was priced at only a penny halfpenny, to attract popular readership.
Gleadle, Kathryn. The Early Feminists. Macmillan, 1995.
91
It enjoyed circulation figures of 50,000 to 60,000—slightly higher than those of Dickens's Household Words—even though that was only a fraction...
Textual Production Julia Wedgwood
The standard work in its day, now fifty years old, had been Eliza Meteyard 's The Life of Josiah Wedgwood. JW ' friend C. H. Herford edited the book and added a memoir of the author.
Herford, Charles Harold, and Julia Wedgwood. “Frances Julia Wedgwood: A Memoir by the Editor”. The Personal Life of Josiah Wedgwood the Potter, Macmillan, 1915, p. xi - xxx.
iv
Textual Production Matilda Hays
In 1847, while still in her twenties, MH was led by her desire to improve the lot of women to found a periodical. In the words of her later application for a Civil List pension:...
Textual Production Mary Howitt
The museum at Odense in Denmark, birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen , holds some MH material. A copy of R. H. Horne 's A New Spirit of the Age in Harvard University Library has...

Timeline

2 May 1857: A grand dome designed by Panizzi was opened...

Building item

2 May 1857

A grand dome designed by Panizzi was opened in what had been the central courtyard of the British Museum .
Barwick, George. The Reading Room of the British Museum. Ernest Benn, 1929.
65, 71, 88, 102, 104-5, 136, 139
Walkowitz, Judith R. City of Dreadful Delight. University of Chicago Press, 1992.
69

Texts

Meteyard, Eliza. “Art in Spitalfields”. The People’s Journal, Vol.
2
, 1846, pp. 40 - 3, 52.
Meteyard, Eliza. “Bridget of the Moor: A Derbyshire Tradition of Christmas Tide, 1664”. The Reliquary: a depository for precious relics-legendary, biographical, and historical, Vol.
2
, 1861, pp. 117-25.
Meteyard, Eliza. “Great Yarmouth: Semi-Dutch Town”. The Reliquary: a depository for precious relics-legendary, biographical, and historical, Vol.
12
, 1871, pp. 381-6.
Lightbown, Ronald W., and Eliza Meteyard. “Introduction”. The Life of Josiah Wedgwood, Cornmarket Press, 1970.
Meteyard, Eliza, and John Absolon. Lilian’s Golden Hours. G. Routledge, 1857.
Meteyard, Eliza. Mainstone’s Housekeeper. Hurst and Blackett, 1860, 3 vols.
Meteyard, Eliza. “Our Plates and Dishes”. Good Words, Vol.
11
, 1870, pp. 541-3.
Meteyard, Eliza. “Scenes in the Life of an Authoress”. Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, Vol.
14o.s., 10n.s.-15.o.s., 11n.s.
, pp. 765 - 75, 36.
Meteyard, Eliza. Struggles for Fame. 1845, 3 vols.
Meteyard, Eliza. The Doctor’s Little Daughter. G. Routledge, 1850.
Meteyard, Eliza. The Doctor’s Little Daughter. G. Routledge and Sons, 1872.
Meteyard, Eliza. The Hallowed Spots of Ancient London. Marlborough, 1862.
Meteyard, Eliza. The Lady Herbert’s Gentlewomen. Hurst and Blackett, 1862, 3 vols.
Meteyard, Eliza. The Life of Josiah Wedgwood. Hurst and Blackett, 1866, 2 vols.
Meteyard, Eliza. The Nine Hours’ Movement. 1872.
Meteyard, Eliza. Wedgwood and His Works. Bell and Daldy, 1873.
Meteyard, Eliza. Wedgwood Trio. Editor Buten, Harry M., Buten Museum of Wedgwood, 1967.