ELIZABETH CRAVEN AND HER WORLD

It has been an eventful year for the Elizabeth Craven Society. On January 19th 2019, a reading was held of Craven's play The  Miniature Picture , at the  play-reading group of Dr Lois Potter in London University. For many,  this was their first acquaintance with the play and with Elizabeth  Craven. It was a very jolly occasion. The general verdict is that this  is still a performable play, whose comedy would amuse a modern  audience, and whose feminist ideas come over very clearly. Other highlights have included the discovery of two hitherto unknown  works by Elizabeth Craven, including the full-length novel The Witch  and the Maid of Honour, which is written about here on my blog:- https:// elizabethberkeleycraven. blogspot.com/2018/04/the- witch-and-maid-of-honour-lost- novel.html The other work, never before studied by any critic or attributed to  her in bibliographies, is Pleasant Pastime for a Christmas Evening ,  written about on ...

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 Unpublished MS play in three Acts.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...

Henrietta Vernon, Lady Grosvenor, by Thomas Gainsborough    When a Georgian woman got divorced, she was supposed to disappear into a twilight of disgrace and social disapproval. At the end of Mansfield Park , this happens to Maria Bertram, who elopes with Henry Crawford, is divorced by her husband Mr Rushworth, and ends up banished from England to live somewhere abroad "remote and private".    But did she really have such a terrible fate? I sometimes imagine that Maria Rushworth had a whale of a time in Paris or Brussels, far away from Mansfield Park. The life of Henrietta, Lady Grosvenor, suggests that divorce was not always such a disaster. There was in fact a flourishing Alternative Society in Georgian England, within which such women lived with impunity and they were very much in the public eye. Miss Caroline Vernon c.1780 by  François-Xavier Vispré from National Tr ust  collection, Attingham Park, Shropshire, the home of her sister Anna. ...

Elizabeth Craven's elder brother, Frederick, 5th Earl of Berkeley, was one of the most eligible men in England. Clever, cultivated and well-travelled, owner of vast estates that included Berkeley Square in London and an ancestral castle, he was often busy running the Gloucester militia, which played an essential role in the defence of the kingdom during the Napoleonic Wars. He loved to wear the scarlet coat that proclaimed him colonel of this militia, the coat he is wearing in this portrait painted of him as a young man by Pompeo Batoni. And what a handsome young man he is. The 5th Earl was also an infamous Georgian rake, one of the most  dastardly libertines who ever ensnared an innocent female . He could have added lustre to his family name, but instead he made it notorious for all the wrong reasons. The scandal lingered on long after his death and had immense repercussions.  He really deserves to be classed along with the Lovelaces, Valmonts, Squire Thornhills, Wil...

The Margrave of Ansbach, who became Elizabeth Craven's second husband, owned some palatial residences, far too palatial for him to live in them most of the time. He preferred to live more modestly. The Margrave Charles-Alexander of Ansbach from https://www.triesdorf.de/fileadmin/LLA/doku/Downloads/Bildunszentr_Triesdorf_Broschuere_englisch.pdf In the years before his abdication he used a former hunting lodge, The Red Castle, as his home. The palace at Ansbach, the capital of his little principality, survives and is well-preserved. It is now in Bavaria. This video gives a visual tour of its interiors, showing the fine collection of pictures and artworks. Can you spot the portrait of Elizabeth Craven that flashes into view for just a second or so? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r_x_IP791A Copy the link into your browser address bar to watch the video. To find out more about Elizabeth Craven, her writings and the people she knew, read https://v...