Elizabeth Inchbald

Elizabeth Inchbald (née Simpson, 15 October 1753 – 1 August 1821) was an English novelist, actress, dramatist, and translator. Her two novels, '' A Simple Story'' and '' Nature and Art'', have received particular critical attention.

Life

Born on 15 October 1753 at Stanningfield, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, Elizabeth was the eighth of the nine children of John Simpson (died 1761), a farmer, and his wife Mary, ''née'' Rushbrook. The family, like several others in the neighbourhood, was Roman Catholic. Her brother was sent to school, but Elizabeth and her sisters were educated at home.

Inchbald had a speech impediment. Focused on acting from a young age, she worked hard to manage her stammer, but her family discouraged an attempt in early 1770 to gain a position at the Norwich Theatre. That same year her brother George became an actor. Still determined, Inchbald went to London to become an actress in April 1772 at the age of 18. It was a difficult beginning: some observers thought her stammer affected her performance and the audience's reaction. Furthermore, young and alone, she apparently suffered sexual harassment.Spencer, Jane.
ODNB
'. Two months later, in June, she agreed to marry a fellow Catholic, actor Joseph Inchbald (1735–1779), possibly at least in part for protection. Joseph at that time was not well-known, was twice Elizabeth's age, and had two illegitimate sons. The couple did not have children together and the marriage is believed to have had difficulties. The Inchbalds appeared on the stage together for the first time on 4 September 1772 in Shakespeare's ''King Lear.'' In October 1772, the couple began a demanding tour in Scotland with West Digges's theatre company that continued for almost four years. In 1776, they moved to France in order for Joseph to learn to paint and Elizabeth to study French. However, they were penniless within a month. They returned to Britain and moved to Liverpool where Inchbald met actors Sarah Siddons and her brother John Philip Kemble, both of whom became important friends, after joining Joseph Younger's company. The Inchbalds later moved to Canterbury and Yorkshire and in 1777 were hired by Tate Wilkinson's company.

After Joseph Inchbald's sudden death in June 1779, Inchbald continued to act for several years, in Dublin, London, and elsewhere. Her acting career, only moderately successful, spanned 17 years. She appeared in many classical roles and in new plays such as Hannah Cowley's ''The Belle's Stratagem''.

She quarrelled publicly with Mary Wollstonecraft in 1797, when Wollstonecraft's marriage to William Godwin made it clear that she had not been married to Gilbert Imlay, the father of her elder daughter Fanny. This incident was deeply resented by Godwin.

Written work

Inchbald's success as a playwright meant she did not need a husband's financial support and did not remarry. Between 1784 and 1805 she had London theatres perform 19 of her comedies, sentimental dramas and farces (many of them translated from the French). Her first play to be performed was ''A Mogul Tale,'' with her in the leading feminine role of Selina. In 1780, she joined the Covent Garden Company and played a breeches role in ''Philaster'' as Bellario. Other plays of hers produced included ''Appearance is Against Them'' (1785)'', Such Things Are'' (1787), and ''Everyone Has Fault'' (1793). Some of her other plays such as ''A Mogul Tale'' (1784) and ''I'll Tell You What'' (1785) were shown at the Haymarket Theatre. Eighteen of her plays were published. She wrote 21 or 23 more, but the exact number is disputed.

Inchbald's two novels have been frequently reprinted. She also did much editorial and critical work. Her literary start began with writing for The Artist and Edinburgh Review. A four-volume autobiography was destroyed before her death on the advice of her confessor, but she left some of her diaries. The latter are held at the Folger Shakespeare Library and an edition was recently published.

Her play ''Lovers' Vows'' (1798) was featured as a focus of moral controversy by Jane Austen in her novel ''Mansfield Park''.

After her success, Inchbald felt she needed to give something back to London society and decided in 1805 to try being a theatre critic.

A political radical and friend of William Godwin and Thomas Holcroft, her beliefs are clearer in her novels than in her plays, due to constrictions on the patent theatres of Georgian London. "Inchbald's life was marked by tensions between, on the one hand, political radicalism, a passionate nature evidently attracted to a number of her admirers, and a love of independence, and on the other hand, a desire for social respectability and a strong sense of the emotional attraction of authority figures." She died on 1 August 1821 in Kensington and is buried in the churchyard of St Mary Abbots. Her gravestone calls her one "whose writings will be cherished while truth, simplicity, and feelings, command public admiration." In 1833, a two-volume ''Memoirs of Mrs. Inchbald'' by James Boaden was published by Richard Bentley.

In recent decades Inchbald has aroused increasing critical interest, particularly among scholars investigating women's writing.

Reception history

The reception history of Elizabeth Inchbald is the story of an unknown actress who became a celebrated playwright and author. As an actress, the start of her career was overshadowed by her husband, but Inchbald was determined to prove herself. Some scholars recognized this, calling her "richly textured with strands of resistance, boldness, and libidinal thrills". An important side of Inchbald's reception history is her workplace and professional reputation. Around the theatre she was known for upholding high moral standards. Inchbald described having to defend herself from the sexual advances brought on by stage manager James Dodd and theatre manager John Taylor.

Inchbald's writing history began with plays that soon earned her a reputation for publishing in times of political scandal.

One thing that distinguished Inchbald was an ability to translate plays from German and French into English works of art. These were popular, as she livened her characters. Most of what she translated consisted of farce that received positive feedback from her reading audience. Over the next 20 years, she translated a couple of successful pieces a year, one notable example being the play ''Lovers' Vows''. This translation of an August von Kotzebues original gained compliments from Jane Austen in her 1814 novel ''Mansfield Park''. Earlier, ''Lovers' Vows'' had run for 42 nights when originally performed in 1798. Not only her plays, but her novel ''A Simple Story'' was praised. A present-day American critic, Terry Castle, called it "the most elegant English fiction of the eighteenth century".

However, her theatre reviews were received poorly by other critics. For example, S. R. Littlewood suggested in the 1920s that Inchbald was ignorant of Shakespearian literature.

Works

Source materials

*Megan Katovich,
Elizabeth Inchbald: Actress and Playwright

*Roger Manvell, ''Elizabeth Inchbald: England's Principal Woman Dramatist and Independent Woman of Letters in 18th Century London: A Biographical Study'', Lanham, MD: University of America, 1987. In print: Elma Scott
author biography of Elizabeth Inchbald (1753–1821) at www.chawton.org
*Angela Smallwood, Introduction to vol. 6, ''Eighteenth-Century Women Playwrights''

' ''British Women Playwrights around 1800''. 15 August 2001, 32 paragraphs
*Angela Smallwood

*Jane Spencer, ttp://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14374 ‘Inchbald, Elizabeth (1753–1821)’ ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 10 November 2006
*Ben P. Robertson, ''Elizabeth Inchbald's Reputation: A Publishing and Reception History'', London: Pickering & Chatto, 2013
*Fiona Robertson, ed., ''Women's Writing, 1778–1838''. Oxford: OUP, 2001

References

External links

Etexts

Elizabeth Inchbald
at th
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)
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'. Eds Thomas C. Crochunis and Michael Eberle-Sinatra, with a

by Jonathan Wordsworth 5 January 2000
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Lovers' Vows
' a
Project Gutenberg
*

'. Eds. Thomas C. Crochunis and Michael Eberle-Sinatra, with a

by Danny O'Quinn
British Women Playwrights Around 1800
. 15 April 1999.
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Nature and Art
' a
Project Gutenberg
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'. Eds. Gioia Angeletti and Thomas C. Crochunis, with an introduction by Gioia Angeletti
British Women Playwrights Around 1800
. 15 May 2003.
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'. Eds. Thomas C. Crochunis and Susan Hyon
British Women Playwrights Around 1800
. 15 June 2003.
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'. Gioia Angeletti and Thomas C. Crochunis
British Women Playwrights Around 1800
. 15 May 2003.

Adaptations

'The Massacre'
(part of the 'Restoring The Repertoire' series from the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds, UK)
'Wives as they Were, and Maids as they Are'
(part of the 'Restoring The Repertoire' series from the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds, UK)

Sites

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*
*
British Women Playwrights Around 1800

Contents
of ''The British Theatre''
Corvey Women Writers on the Web Author's Page
Beatrice S. Scott's site

XII. The Georgian Drama. ''The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes''. Volume XI. The Period of the French Revolution (1907–21).
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Images

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*Portraits o
Elizabeth Inchbald (1753–1821), Actress and writer
National Portrait Gallery
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': satiric print of Elizabeth Inchbald

{{DEFAULTSORT:Inchbald, Elizabeth
1753 births
1821 deaths
People from the Borough of St Edmundsbury
English women dramatists and playwrights
18th-century British women writers
19th-century English women writers
18th-century British novelists
18th-century British dramatists and playwrights
18th-century English actresses
19th-century English actresses
English stage actresses
18th-century English writers
19th-century English writers
Writers of the Romantic era
English women novelists
Writers from London
People with speech impediment