Eliza Bland Smith Erskine Norton

Eliza Bland Smith Erskine Norton (1795 – 20 September 1855) was a British poet, playwright, and author.

Life Eliza Bland Smith was born in 1795 in Whitehaven, England, the daughter of a Lieutenant Colonel Smith. In 1809, she married Lt. Col. Esmé Stewart Erskine, son of Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine. He lost an arm at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and died in 1817. He later joined the Imperial Brazilian Navy and during the Cisplatine War, he lost an arm in battle in 1828. He died in 1835.

Writing She published two books of poetry, Isabel (1814) and Alcon Malanzore (1815). The latter was a long narrative poem about the doomed interracial love between a Christian woman, Rosaline, and the titular Moorish commander.

Her works are sometimes confused with those of the more famous author Caroline Norton; the latter quipped that "Mrs. Erskine Norton has ingeniously taken to playing at being me to all the publishers." The two women engaged in a debate about this confusion and the appropriate use of British naming conventions in letters to The Times. Children Eliza and Esmé Stewart Erskine had three children:

Thomas Erskine (born 29 March 1810) Esmé Stuart Erskine (8 Sep 1811-1833) Indiana Isabel Norton (died in childhood) Fletcher Carioca Norton Alcon Malanzore: A Moorish Tale (1815) The Martyr: A Tragedy (1848) The Gossip: A Collection of Tales. 3 vol. London: Saunders and Otley, 1852.