Elizabeth Frances Amherst

Elizabeth Frances Amherst (later Thomas; – 1779), was an English poet and amateur naturalist. Although she remained largely unpublished during her own lifetime, she has engendered interest among twentieth- and twenty-first-century critics.

Amherst was an avid fossil collector and maintained an active correspondence on the subject both before and after her marriage. Her poems, often written in "lively octosyllabics and ballad metres" would seem to have circulated mainly in manuscript and within her own circle, though a few were printed anonymously in the 1760s. Her "A prize riddle on herself when 24" is described by a third as "a wry self-portrait."

Works Much of her writing is known from the Bodleian Library manuscript, "The Whims of E.A./afterwards Mrs. Thomas," though there are items in other manuscript collections, as well as some published pieces.

Poems "A prize riddle on herself when 24" "A song for the single table on New Year's Day" "From a young woman to an old officer who courted her" "The Welford wedding" "Verses designed to be sent to Mr. Adams" "To William Shenstone, Esq; the Production of half an hour's leisure. By Cotswouldia." First lines of the forty-six (46) poems in "The Whims of E.A./afterwards Mrs. Thomas"

Plays A Dramatic Pastoral. By a Lady. (Gloucester, 1762)