Elizabeth Griffith

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Standard Name: Griffith, Elizabeth
Birth Name: Elizabeth Griffith
Married Name: Elizabeth Griffith
Pseudonym: A Young Gentlewoman
Pseudonym: Frances
Indexed Name: Mrs Griffith
Pseudonym: E. G.
EG is now best-known as an eighteenth-century novelist and dramatist. But she was best-known in her own lifetime as a writer of fictional letters; and her output as a professional author included translation, short stories, periodical essays, and critical and editorial work.
Stipple engraving in oval frame of Elizabeth Griffith by Mackenzie, after J. Thomas, published 1801. Her head-covering looks like a turban tied in a bow under her chin, with another bow at the stand-away collar of her jacket. Her name appears below as "Mrs Griffith". National Portrait Gallery.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Anthologization Eliza Haywood
The full title is The Fruitless Enquiry, Being a Collection of Several Entertaining Histories and Occurrences, Which Fell under the Observation of a Lady in her Search after Happiness. The book was included (revised...
Anthologization Penelope Aubin
This appeared, like The Life of Madam de Beaumount, with a frontispiece. It is dedicated to Lady Coleraine , with thanks for her patronage of the author's husband .
Though the widow of the...
Friends, Associates Frances Brooke
As a result of her friendship with the musicologist Charles Burney (1726-1814), FB became a friend of his daughter Frances as well.
McMullen, Lorraine. An Odd Attempt in a Woman: The Literary Life of Frances Brooke. University of British Columbia Press, 1983.
135
Frances Burney liked Brooke, but was worried at her close friendship with...
Intertextuality and Influence Catherine Hutton
Jane Oakwood says (presumably standing in for her author, as she often does) that in youth she was accused of imitating Juliet, Lady Catesby (Frances Brooke 's translation from Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni ).
Hutton, Catherine. Oakwood Hall. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1819, 3 vols.
3: 95
Intertextuality and Influence Anna Letitia Barbauld
She was selecting novels for this project in March 1807, but the work was delayed by the catastrophe of her husband's deterioration and suicide. A thousand copies were printed, and her editorial fee was £300....
Intertextuality and Influence Anna Maria Mackenzie
Meanwhile the heroine, Maria Stanley, is unjustly spurned by her husband because he believes the lying insinuations of a jealous and wicked woman whom he has rejected, but the truth is revealed in time for...
Intertextuality and Influence Maria Susanna Cooper
The topic of the long-suffering wife became a favourite with later sentimental novelists, notably Elizabeth Griffith in The Delicate Distress, 1769, Lady Barton, 1771, and Lady Juliana Harley, 1776.
Literary responses Frances Brooke
The Critical Review and Gentleman's Magazine were respectful; the Monthly blamed FB for indelicacy in her heroine and for unfairness to Garrick. It quoted testimonials about his care for their work from other women writers,...
Literary responses Dorothea Celesia
A prologue by William Whitehead mentioned DC 's right to inherit her father's theatrical talent, in spite of her sex: No Salick law here bars the female's claim. It concluded with the statement that critics...
Occupation John Donne
During the later seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries Donne's writings were largely forgotten or disapproved of. In June 1741 the London Magazine printed a regularised (to modern eyes butchered) version of Goe, and catche a...
Occupation David Garrick
This began his career as theatre manager. One of a manager's duties might be considered to be the putting on of new plays, to ensure the health of the theatre of the future, but familiar...
Publishing Marie-Madeleine de Lafayette
This book, set in the period which in England was Elizabethan , became notorious before publication through private salon readings. When published in Paris by Barbin , with the author's name withheld, it was immediately...
Publishing Charlotte Brooke
Her father had cherished a never-executed project for a history of ancient Irish literature.
Ashley, Leonard R. N. et al. “Introduction”. Reliques of Irish Poetry, Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1970, p. v - xv.
vi
She had issued Proposals for this work the year before publication. The Houghton Library copy of the Proposals incorporates a...
Reception Aphra Behn
It was frequently adapted and recycled. A French translation by Pierre Antoine de La Place , 1745, sentimentalises the story, provides a happy ending, and adds the Histoire d'Imoinda. As a prose narrative Oroonoko...
Textual Production Sir Walter Scott
Fifty years before that, lengths and prices had been more various. Three-volume novels were already standard, but whereas The History of Lady Barton by Elizabeth Griffith and The Old Maid by Ann Skinn , both...

Timeline

1771: In a year when Sir Joshua Reynolds painted,...

Women writers item

1771

In a year when Sir Joshua Reynolds painted, as Girl Reading, his niece Theophila Palmer perusing Richardson 's Clarissa, five novels by women advertised their Clarissa kinship.
Perry, Ruth. “Clarissa’s Daughters, or The History of Innocence Betrayed. How Women Writers Rewrote Richardson”. Clarissa and Her Readers: New Essays for the Clarissa Project, edited by Carol Houlihan Flynn and Edward Copeland, AMS Press, 1999, pp. 119-41.
133-5

April 1774: The Monthly Review, in a notice on Hannah...

Women writers item

April 1774

The Monthly Review, in a notice on Hannah More 's The Inflexible Captive, quoted some lines which transform the Muses from ancient Greece into the living female poets of Britain.
Griffiths, Ralph, 1720 - 1803, and George Edward Griffiths, editors. Monthly Review. R. Griffiths.
50 (April 1774): 243-51

1777: Richard Samuel engraved his Nine Living Muses...

Women writers item

1777

Richard Samuel engraved his Nine Living Muses of Great Britain (or Portraits in the Character of the Muses in the Temple of Apollo) for Johnson's Ladies New and Polite Pocket Memorandum for 1778...

1780: James Harrison (hitherto chiefly known as...

Writing climate item

1780

James Harrison (hitherto chiefly known as a music publisher) began to issue the handsomely-produced Novelists' Magazine, a weekly serial reprinting of canonical novels.
Shevlin, Elinor. “’It is the intention of the Editor’: Griffith’s, Harrison’s, and Cooke’s collections and the making of the English novel”. American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS) Conference, New Orleans, LA, 21 Apr. 2001.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
Fleeman, John David, and James McLaverty. A Bibliography of the Works of Samuel Johnson. Clarendon Press, 2000, 2 vols.
2: 1023

Texts

Griffith, Elizabeth, editor. A Collection of Novels. Printed for G. Kearsly, 1777.
Desenfans, Noel Joseph. A Letter from Monsieur Desenfans to Mrs. Montagu. Translator Griffith, Elizabeth, T. Cadell, 1777.
Griffith, Richard, d. 1788, and Elizabeth Griffith. A Series of Genuine Letters between Henry and Frances. W. Johnston, 1757, 6 vols.
Griffith, Elizabeth. A Wife in the Right. Printed for the author and sold by E. and C. Dilly, 1772.
Griffith, Elizabeth. Amana. W. Johnston, 1764.
Griffith, Elizabeth. Essays Addressed to Young Married Women. T. Cadell and J. Robson, 1782.
Griffith, Elizabeth. “Introduction”. The Delicate Distress, edited by Cynthia Booth Ricciardi and Susan Staves, University Press of Kentucky, 1997, p. vii - xviii.
Caylus, Marthe-Marguerite, marquise de. Memoirs, Anecdotes and Characters of the Court of Lewis XIV. Translator Griffith, Elizabeth, J. Dodsley and J. Murray, 1770.
Griffith, Elizabeth, and Oliver Goldsmith. Novellettes. Fielding and Walker, 1780.
Freeman, Arthur, and Elizabeth Griffith. “Preface”. The Morality of Shakespeare’s Drama Illustrated, Frank Cass, 1971.
Griffith, Elizabeth et al. “The Delicate Distress”. Two Novels. In Letters, T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, 1769, p. Volumes 1 and 2.
Griffith, Elizabeth. The Delicate Distress. Editors Staves, Susan and Cynthia Booth Ricciardi, University Press of Kentucky, 1997.
Griffith, Elizabeth. The Double Mistake. J. Almon, T. Lowndes, S. Bladon, and J. Williams, 1766.
Griffith, Elizabeth. The History of Lady Barton. T. Davies and T. Cadell, 1771, 3 vols.
Douxménil,. The Memoirs of Ninon de l’Enclos. Translator Griffith, Elizabeth, R. and J. Dodsley, 1761, 2 vols.
Griffith, Elizabeth. The Morality of Shakespeare’s Drama Illustrated. T. Cadell, 1775.
Griffith, Elizabeth. The Platonic Wife. W. Johnston, 1765.
Griffith, Elizabeth. The School for Rakes. T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, 1769.
Dubois-Fontenelle, Jean-Gaspard. The Shipwreck and Adventures of Monsieur Viaud. Translator Griffith, Elizabeth, T. Davies, 1771.
Griffith, Elizabeth. The Story of Lady Juliana Harley. T. Cadell, 1776, 2 vols.
Griffith, Elizabeth. The Times. Fielding and Walker, J. Dodsley, T. Becket, and T. Davies, 1780.
Griffith, Elizabeth. Theodorick, King of Denmark. James Esdall, 1752.