Elizabeth Isabella Spence

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Standard Name: Spence, Elizabeth Isabella
Indexed Name: Miss Spence
Pseudonym: A Lady
Pseudonym: The Author of Summer Excursions . . . .
EIS began publishing just before the end of the eighteenth century and continued for twenty-five years. She issued novels, shorter fiction, and travel books, the latter put together from letters sent to friends in the course of summer excursions around England, Wales, and Scotland (her native country). Her fiction sometimes draws on anecdotes from life, both recent and historical or pseudo-historical. As an author she is not distinguished, but her interest in circulating information about other women writers gives her some significance for women's literary history.
Engraving of Elizabeth Isabella Spence, from from "La Belle Assemblée", No. 185. She is seated, seen from the shoulders up, facing the viewer with a slight smile. She wears a dark, high-waisted dress with short sleeves and two layers of white linen at the neck, with a light shawl wrapped around her. Her curly hair spills out from her high, puffed, flower-bedecked bonnet. A book or sheaf of papers, and a quill and inkwell, are visible on a desk behind her.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Birth Christian Milne
Christian Ross (later CM ) was born on this day, according to what she specifically told Elizabeth Isabella Spence , at Inverness in Scotland.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Letters from the North Highlands, During the Summer 1816. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1817.
57
Family and Intimate relationships Christian Milne
Elizabeth Isabella Spence later called him a common carpenter.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Letters from the North Highlands, During the Summer 1816. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1817.
56
In the course of his sea voyages he was twice captured by the Americans, and lost his clothes and the wages due to him.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Letters from the North Highlands, During the Summer 1816. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1817.
62
Family and Intimate relationships Isabella Kelly
IK was related to two other writers: James Fordyce (her uncle) and Elizabeth Isabella Spence , a cousin.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2024, 22 vols. plus supplements.
under James Fordyce
Friends, Associates Jane Porter
The Porters' mother lived a busy social life on limited means, and JP kept up this tradition. Sir Walter Scott was an early friend.
Mudge, Bradford Keyes, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 116. Gale Research, 1992.
265
When she moved to London, JP included among her friends...
Friends, Associates Christian Isobel Johnstone
The novelist Elizabeth Isabella Spence stayed with CIJ in Dunfermline; she knew Johnstone's first novel and called her home the abode of genius.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Letters from the North Highlands, During the Summer 1816. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1817.
303
Friends, Associates Lady Caroline Lamb
LCL 's friendships with women writers (besides Morgan) would surprise anyone not taking her seriously as a writer. When Germaine de Staël visited England, Lady Caroline was delighted to find her wearing a hat with...
Friends, Associates L. E. L.
By the time LEL began living alone, she was well-known in literary circles. She became a good friend of Emma Roberts and Rosina Bulwer-Lytton around this time, and gradually became a recognized London public figure...
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger
At the same period EOB was a friend of another miscellaneous writer, Elizabeth Isabella Spence , who entertained in the same eccentric, low-budget style. These two elderly ladies (Spence was ten years older than Benger)...
Friends, Associates Rosina Bulwer Lytton Baroness Lytton
Their mother was living in Paris at this time, and Rosina lived in London with her uncle Sir John Doyle (latterly without her sister, who joined their mother in Paris). She reputedly had an unusual...
Friends, Associates Christian Milne
CM was visited at her home by the novelist and travel-writer Elizabeth Isabella Spence (who was Scots-born though living in England, and who took a great interest both in her life-story and in her poetry).
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Letters from the North Highlands, During the Summer 1816. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1817.
52
Health Ann Radcliffe
Rictor Norton believes that AR may have suffered a nervous breakdown in 1803, after finishing Gaston de Blondeville, and another in late 1812, after the publishing of Anna Seward 's letters alleging that she...
Literary responses Eliza Fletcher
During her lifetime EF acquired a literary reputation for her life rather than her works. Elizabeth Isabella Spence wrote of her as the Mrs. Montague of Edinburgh, who combined intellect with virtue and made...
Literary responses Ann Yearsley
Elizabeth Isabella Spence , reporting on a visit to Bristol, mentions AY as an example of an obscure woman writer of genius.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Summer Excursions. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1809, 2 vols.
71
In 1990 Donna Landry wrote of her complex contradictions under the heading...
Literary responses Christian Milne
CM knew from harsh experience that for a labouring-class woman, publishing poems invited personal criticism (as Elizabeth Hands in England had understood). She says she met with encouragement from patrons but that her neighbours assumed...
Literary responses Mary Robinson
On her deathbed MR regretted that most of her works had been composed in too much haste,
Robinson, Mary. Perdita: The Memoirs of Mary Robinson. Editor Levy, Moses Joseph, Peter Owen, 1994.
151
and declared that if, against all expectation, she should survive, she would begin a new long work...

Timeline

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Texts

Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. A Traveller’s Tale of the Last Century. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1819, 3 vols.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Dame Rebecca Berry. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green , 1827, 3 vols.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Helen Sinclair. T. Cadell, jun. and W. Davies, 1799, 2 vols.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. How to be Rid of a Wife, and The Lily of Annandale: Tales. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1823, 2 vols.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Letters from the North Highlands, During the Summer 1816. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1817.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Old Stories. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row, 1822, 2 vols.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Sketches of the Present Manners, Customs, and Scenery of Scotland. 2nd ed., Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1811, 2 vols.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Summer Excursions. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1809, 2 vols.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. The Curate and His Daughter; A Cornish Tale. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row, 1813, 3 vols.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. The Nobility of the Heart. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1805, 3 vols.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. The Spanish Guitar. W. McDowall, 1814.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. The Wedding Day. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1807.