ELIZABETH CRAVEN AND HER WORLD

   The novelist Lady Helen Emily Craven (1874-1926), was a direct descendant of Elizabeth Craven. The daughter of the 3 rd  Earl of Craven, she is usually known by her married name, Forbes, under which her novels were published.   She first ventured into print writing newspaper articles about fashion at the age of sixteen. On 7th October 1890 she advised readers of The Guardian :- "A fine and warm September has delayed considerably the production of autumnal novelties, for in these days of cheap imitation the best milliners and dressmakers jealously withhold their newest inventions till the last possible moment. Despite the rumours that reach us from Paris of a threatened revolution in dress, of stiff Holbein bodices, with padded rolls upon the hips, as yet the simple, graceful gored skirt and Princess polonaise continue to hold their ground. It is in the Tudor times, the long-past days of pearl-broidered kirtles and jewelled stomachers, that we shall find the o...

   Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, the family home of Elizabeth Craven's ancestors, has been occupied by a succession of Berkeleys since before the Norman Conquest. Rarely however has it been governed by a woman. Anne, Lady Berkeley,  by Meister Drucke  The exception is Anne, Lady Berkeley, who in the reign of Henry VIII held it and controlled the large estates unaided. Not only that, but we are told that she acted as a judge and sat on the Bench. In The Percy Anecdotes we read:-" In the reign of Henry VIII. when during some family quarrels, Maurice Berkely, Nicholas Poyntz, and a riotous company of their servants, entered the park of Lady Anne Berkeley, at Yate, killed the deer, and set a hay-rick on fire, this lady repaired to court, and made her complaint. The king immediately granted her a special commission under the great seal to inquire, hear, and determine these riots and misdemeanors, and made her one of the commissioners and of the quorum. She the...

Sister Novelists: The Trailblazing Porter Sisters, Who Paved the Way for Jane Austen and the Brontës  by Devoney Looser. I wonder whether the blurb on this book was written by the publishers (Bloomsbury), or by the author. Nowadays publishers usually ask the author to write it. It claims:-" Before the Brontë sisters picked up their pens, or Jane Austen's heroines Elizabeth and Jane Bennet became household names, the literary world was celebrating a different pair of sisters: Jane and Anna Maria Porter. The Porters -- exact contemporaries of Jane Austen -- were brilliant, attractive, self-made single women of polite reputation who between them published 26 books and achieved global fame. They socialized among the rich and famous, tried to hide their family's considerable debt, and fell dramatically in and out of love. Their moving letters to each other confess every detail. Because the celebrity sisters expected their renown to live on, they preserved their papers, and the ...

The exhibition at Chawton House entitled  Mary Robinson: Actress, Mistress, Write r, Radical, brought together an immense amount of material shedding light on this remarkable Georgian woman, who deserves to be known for so much more than just being an actress and the mistress of George IV when he was Prince of Wales.    Mary Darby Robinson wrote several novels, a lot of accomplished poetry, and some fascinating Memoirs, as well as the feminist text A Letter to the Women of England.      Despite her fame and talent, her life was never easy. Tricked into marriage in her teens, she was incarcerated in a debtors' prison, with her infant daughter, because of the debts of her feckless husband. She escaped by publishing fiction and launching on a career on the London stage, where she was much applauded for her beauty and talents. Mary Robinson wearing a chemise-style dress. After achieving success in many rôles, in May 1780 she acted the lead in the first of Eli...

    In the ODNB entry for Elizabeth Craven, written by Katherine Turner, we find the assertion that the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu written in the early 18th century,  Letters of Lady M--y W-----y M--------e Written During Her Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa, offer a "favourable" account of Turkey, unlike Craven's later travelogue A Journey Through the Crimea to Constantinople, published in 1789.    Turner's essay "From Classical to Imperial: Changing Visions of Turkey in the Eighteenth Century" in Stephen H. Clarke, ed,  Travel Writing and Empire  (Zed books, 1999), also states that she offers an "attractive vision of Turkey" and that her letters are "highly favourable". The essay presents Craven's travelogue as the antithesis of Montagu's, and insists that Craven is far more critical.     The opinion that Montagu is favourable towards the Turkish empire is undoubtedly meant to be a favourable judgement in itself, i...