Frances Talbot, Countess Of Morley

Frances Talbot, Countess of Morley (married name Frances Parker; 1782–1857) was an English author and illustrator, best known as a correspondent of Jane Austen. By her marriage to John Parker, 1st Earl of Morley, she became the Countess of Morley.

Family

Frances Talbot was the daughter of a surgeon, Thomas Talbot of Wymondham.Austen, Jane
"Jane Austen's Letters"
pg. 556 Her brother, Thomas Sugden Talbot, was a clergyman."The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. 151"
pg. 570 This branch of the Talbot family was a junior branch of the Talbots of Salesbury and Bashall, and had acquired their estate of Gonville Hall during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Burke, John Bernard
"Encyclopaedia of Heraldry"
pg. 994

Marriage

Talbot married John Parker, then Baron Boringdon, in August 1809. It was his second marriage, the first one having ended in scandal. His first wife, a daughter of the Earl of Westmorland, divorced him and married Arthur Paget as a result of her husband's many infidelities. Parker had actually attempted to start an affair with Talbot earlier, but she had refused. Talbot's marriage to Parker would prove more successful than his first one; they were married for thirty-one years. She was the mother of Parker's second legitimate son, Edmund Parker, 2nd Earl of Morley, who would later succeed to the earldom (as the elder son died young), as well as a daughter, Caroline, who died in 1818 at the age of four.Viveash, Chris
"Lady Morley and the Baron So Bold"
Journal of the Jane Austen Society of North America

Literary interests

Talbot was an early admirer of the work of Jane Austen, though it is not clear how they came to be acquainted; it is possible that they were introduced through Austen's brother, Henry Thomas Austen. Talbot was the author of one of the five known surviving letters written to Jane Austen,"Textual Studies and the Enlarged Eighteenth Century: Precision as Profusion"
pg. 169 and she received a personal copy of '' Emma '' from Austen."Jane Austen's Fame and Fortune, Now and Then"
/ref> Talbot was mistakenly identified as a possible author of both ''Pride and Prejudice'' and ''Sense and Sensibility''; strangely enough, her husband's first wife was also sometimes put forth as a possible author of the latter novel.

Talbot was herself an artist, illustrator, and novelist. She wrote several novels, including ''The Flying Burgomaster'' (1832), ''The Royal Intellectual Bazaar'' (1832), and ''The Man Without a Name'' (1852), and edited ''Dacre'' (1834)."Frances Parker, Countess of Morley"
at the Graphic Arts Collection, Special Collections, Firestone Library, Princeton University She lithographed the plates for ''Portraits of the Spruggins Family'', another work to which she was mistakenly attributed authorship.Yale Center for British Art
/ref>

Death

Talbot died at Saltram on 6 December 1857 and was buried in the family vault at Plympton St Mary.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morley, Frances Talbot, Countess of
1782 births
1857 deaths
British countesses
English women novelists
English illustrators
British women illustrators
19th-century English novelists
19th-century English women writers
19th-century English artists
19th-century British women artists