Esther Lewis, (1716-1794) was an English poet who published in the fashionable '' Bath Journal'' and occasionally in the '' Gentleman's Magazine''. She is also known by her

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

of ''Sylvia'' and her later married name of Esther Clark.Esther Lewis Clark
in The Cambridge Companion to Women's Writing in Britain, 1660–1789, Cambridge Companions to Literature, Catherine Ingrassia ED, Cambridge University Press, (2015), pages xiv and 5

Biography

Esther Lewis was the daughter of a clergyman Rev John Lewis of

Holt Holt or holte may refer to: Natural world *Holt (den), an otter den * Holt, an area of woodland Places Australia * Holt, Australian Capital Territory * Division of Holt, an electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives in Vic ...

, Wiltshire.Ester Clark
in The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Eighteenth-Century Writers and Writing 1660 - 1789 Paul Baines, Julian Ferraro, Pat Rogers, page 67, pub John Wiley & Sons, 2010 She had a mentor in Dr

Samuel Bowden Samuel Bowden may refer to: * Samuel Bowden (poet) * Samuel Bowden (cricketer) * Samuel Bowden (Medal of Honor) {{hndis, Bowden, Samuel ...

, her doctor who had treated her through a

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

infection and who was impressed by her talent. Bowden regularly published his own poetry in the ''Bath Journal'' and, encouraged her to write and publish poetry there too. He promoted her with a poem of his own entitled ''To a Young Lady of Holt on her most Ingenious Poems'' (1749) Lonsdale, Roger (ed) (1990)
Esther Lewis
in '' Eighteenth Century Women Poets: An Oxford Anthology''. Oxford University Press. page 225. . After the death of her father she married Robert Clark of

Tetbury Tetbury is a town and civil parish inside the Cotswold district in England. It lies on the site of an ancient hill fort, on which an Anglo-Saxon monastery was founded, probably by Ine of Wessex, in 681. The population of the parish was 5,250 in ...

in 1760 and moved there. Her best known poem is ''Advice to a Young Lady Lately Married'' (1752). Her works were popular and reprinted over the subsequent decades. She arranged a collection of her own works at the prompting of her husband, which were published for charity in 1789, as ''Poems Moral and Entertaining''. This contains a letter to an anonymous lady in London who is thought to be

Sarah Fielding Sarah Fielding (8 November 1710 – 9 April 1768) was an English author and sister of the novelist Henry Fielding. She wrote ''The Governess, or The Little Female Academy'' (1749), thought to be the first novel in English aimed expressly at chil ...

, sister of Henry Fielding, whom she had befriended at Bath around 1758. She died at Tetbury in 1794 and is buried there.

References

External links

Advice to a Young Lady Lately Married
The poem at Poetrynook, Accessed April 2016 {{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Esther 1716 births 1794 deaths 18th-century British poets British women poets 18th-century English writers 18th-century English women writers Pseudonymous women writers 18th-century pseudonymous writers