ELIZABETH CRAVEN AND HER WORLD

A short complimentary poem appeared in The Morning Post on Saturday, Aug. 25, 1810. It was addressed to Elizabeth Craven, and chides her for spending her time doing needlework, rather than cultivating her literary talents. Written in rhyming couplets, it is really not a bad poem . The flattery of Craven's beauty, when she was aged nearly sixty at this time, is a bit over the top, and conventional but the praise of her writing - "wit in prose and elegance in rhyme"  -  is far more unusual. To tell a woman to desist from humdrum domestic tasks and get on with writing is a welcome change. Sir Lumley Skeffington, caricature c. 1810 The poem was reprinted in an anthology three years later. It was unsigned, and was attributed hypothetically to Lumley Skeffington, a rather rakish young friend of Elizabeth's youngest son Keppel. The attribution is not very convincing. "Skeffie" as his friends called him, was a dandy and somewhat wild young man, who enjoyed taki

Anne-Marie Fauques de Vaucluse, a Tiger among the Bluestockings. The only biography and methodical bibliography of Anne-Marie Fauques de Vaucluse (1720-1804) an 18th century woman writer who was a novelist, poet, satirist, feminist and philosopher, as well as being a close friend of Elizabeth Craven. An ex-nun and fierce feminist, she wrote a book denouncing Madame de Pompadour and was thrown into prison in England...though not for writing the book. Under the name of Madame de Vaucluse, she became quite celebrated in Bluestocking circles for her literary talents and remarkable learning, and she became a close friend of William Beckford. Many of her books have not been attributed to her and even her identity has become severely confused in modern times. This confusion needs to be cleared up and her books deserve to be read. Paperback print version and Ebook are both now available. https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/julia-gasper/anne-marie-fauques-de-vaucluse-a-tiger-among-the-bluestocking

Two letters from Elizabeth Craven survive in the William Beckford Manuscript Collection in the Beinecke Library at Yale University. The first is addressed to Sir William Hamilton, the British ambassador to Naples.  Craven had long been acquainted with Hamilton, who had connections with her family, and she met him again in Naples when she went there in 1790 with the Margrave of Anspach. She stayed there as his guest and met his wife, the celebrated artist's model Emma, Lady Hamilton. The letter is dated 13th May from Triesdorf, and the year is evidently 1790 as Craven makes many references to her recent stay with the King and Queen of Naples, and the civility she met there. She also refers to the fact that the Margrave has just had to dismiss his secretary and one other court official in Anspach as they were involved in some machinations during his absence. This happened in April 1790. The Margrave has employed a new councillor called Bernsprunger, and Elizabeth writes that she is c

Few people know where and when Anne-Marie Fauques de Vaucluse the writer was buried. When she died she did  not get  any obituaries, but the parish records survive and prove that she was buried on the estate of her friend and patron William Beckford. Beckford was the owner of a grand estate, Fonthill in Wiltshire, where he had a mansion in Palladian style. Nothing survives of it today except these imposing entrance gates.      There were several villages on the estate, one called Fonthill Gifford. There, in the churchyard of St Nicholas, Anne-Marie Fauques was buried in 1804 under her married name of Madame de Starck. Although the house has gone and the original, classical style church was rebuilt in Victorian times, the fine landscaped park of the Beckford estate survives, with its woodlands and lake. It is now owned by the National Trust and most of it is grazed by cattle or sheep. The lake in the grounds of Fonthill, where the author went boating with William Beckford, still exists