Elizabeth Hervey

Elizabeth Hervey (1748–1820) was the author of seven novels, six of which were published and one of which exists "in a carefully-bound manuscript." Title page of Elizabeth Hervey's Melissa and Marcia; or The Sisters: A Novel. Vol. I. London: W. Lane, 1788.

Life

Elizabeth March was the daughter of Maria Hamilton (7 January 1725 – 22 July 1798), daughter of George Hamilton (MP for Wells) and granddaughter of the sixth earl of Abercorn, and Francis March, a "Jamaican planter and City man." After the death of her father, her mother married wealthy planter, slave-owner and politician William Beckford. While still in her teens, March married Alexander Harvie, a business associate of her stepfather's who died in 1765 and left her a widow at the age of seventeen. Her second marriage was also brief: in 1774 she married Col William Thomas Hervey and had two sons before Hervey either died or the marriage ended in 1778, while the family was living abroad due to debt.

Work Hervey's first five novels were all published anonymously, which has at times led to difficulties for bibliographers: her second novel, Louisa (1790) has been erroneously attributed to Jane West. The church of St. Siffrid, The Mourtray Family, and Amabel.

Hervey was one of the 106 "lost" women writers Dale Spender listed in Mothers of the Novel in 1986.

Novels Melissa and Marcia; or the sisters: a novel. In two volumes. London: William Lane, 1788; 2nd ed. 1796. Louisa. A novel, in three volumes. By the author of Melissa and Marcia; or, the sisters. London: Thomas Hookham, 1790. (Irish edition: Dublin: Wogan et al., 1790). The history of Ned Evans. In four volumes. London: G. G. and J. Robinson, 1796; 2nd ed. 1797. (Irish eds.: Dublin, 1796; 1797.) The church of St. Siffrid. In four volumes. London: G. G. and J. Robinson, 1797. (Irish ed.: Dublin: William Porter and Nicholas Kelly, 1798) The Mourtray Family. A novel. In four volumes. London: R. Faulder, 1800. (2nd ed.: 1810; 3rd ed.: London: Henry Colburn, 1814) Amabel; or, Memoirs of A Woman of Fashion. By Mrs. Hervey. Author of the Mourtray Family, &c. In Four Volumes. London: Henry Colburn, 1814. (2nd ed.: London: A. K. Newman and Co., 1818)

Etexts The Mourtray Family. 1800. (Full text, HathiTrust) (Google Books: Full text, 3rd ed. 1814, Vol. I, II, III, IV) Amabel; or, Memoirs of a woman of fashion. 1814. (Full text, HathiTrust)

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