ELIZABETH CRAVEN AND HER WORLD

    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...

Five-star ratings and reviews are coming in for " Sophie de Tott, Artist in a Time of Revolution, " on book websites such as Goodreads and Amazon, and on social media.  Amazon Customer 5.0 out of 5 stars   Artist, novelist, musician, refugee Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2020 I found this a fascinating read. Sometime in the year 1800, 42-year-old Sophie de Tott from Paris, artist, novelist, refugee and strong supporter of the Bourbon monarchy, flees from Hamburg to Maddox Street, London, to escape Napoleon's agents and the likely guillotine. In London she continues to paint portraits for a living, as she has done with some success in the Hanseatic city. The French Revolution had upended so many lives - occasionally for the better, as would be the case with Fanny Burney and her French refugee husband. Julia Gasper's absorbing account of the daring, peripatetic existence of Sophie de Tott, however, makes it clear that in this...

Sophie de Tott by Vigée-Lebrun Of all the emigrés who were welcomed to Brandenburgh House by Elizabeth Craven in the aftermath of the French Revolution, none was more remarkable than Sophie de Tott. She was an artist who exhibited her paintings at the British Royal Academy and when she came to stay at Brandenburgh House she painted portraits of Elizabeth's second husband the Margrave of Anspach and her son Keppel. Madame de Tott had once lived in Paris among the highest French aristocracy. As a girl she had been adopted by a rich Countess and lived in the heart of the capital, meeting all the leading intellectuals and enjoying the most cultivated salons. Laudatory poems had been written about her. She had known Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Lafayette, Madame de Stael and Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun who painted this oval portrait of her in 1786. Since fleeing from Paris in the Revolution of 1789 she had lived in Switzerland and Germany, earning a living with her paintbrush. When...

The Eighteenth Century Poetry website has now got an updated and far more comprehensive entry on Elizabeth Craven.  Elizabeth Craven painted by Romney. © National Portrait Gallery, London It lists some of her most outstanding short poems, lists full-length biographies of her and mentions entries in the DNB and reference works. This is very welcome! https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/authors/pers00215.shtml

One thing that always annoys me is how many letters written by women or appertaining to women are not catalogued under that woman's name in archives, but are shoved in with the papers of a male relative or recipient. The British Library does not list this item in its collection under Elizabeth Craven. It is left hidden in the miscellaneous  correspondence of her son Keppel. Yet this letter is of great interest being written to Prince Louis Stanislas Xavier de Bourbon, known as Count of Provence until in later life he became  King Louis XVIII of France. He was the younger brother of Louis XVI who had been sent to the guillotine in 1792. The letter is dated  in 1814,  just before his accession to the throne after the fall of Napoleon. It indicates what friendly terms  Elizabeth Craven  was on with him during his exile in England, and was sent as a cover-note with a gift of a manuscript by a French author, apparently dedicated to her late husband the Margrav...

Elizabeth Craven's works are a lot more numerous than usually supposed. She never made a complete list of them in her Memoirs, which is a pity. Very few are mentioned in the DNB entry under her name. This catalogue is regularly updated. Abdoul, a comedy,    printed in  Nouveau Theatre de Societe d'Anspac et de Triesdorf,  ed. Asimont, Volume 2, 1791. The Adventures and Exit of Sir Tristram Fiddle-Faddle. MS tale. c.1793. In FELS, Catholic Institute Paris. An Arcadian Pastoral .  1782. MS in Bodleian Library. Epilogue was printed in The Annual Register, or a View of the history, politicks and literature of 1782 ,  ed.Robert Dodsley, p.200. Also in The Hibernian Magazine, Or, Compendium of Entertaining Knowledge , 1782 p.271. The Castle of Alstein, a Melodrama. Unpublished MS play in three Acts.   c.1793. FELS archive, Catholic Institute, Paris. Diane, or, Repentir des Voeux.    Ballet en un Acte, avex des Arri...