Elizabeth, Lady Echlin

Elizabeth, Lady Echlin (née Bellingham; 1704 – 1782) was an English writer, best known for her correspondence with Samuel Richardson, and for writing an alternative and less shocking ending to his novel Clarissa.

Personal life She was born Elizabeth Bellingham, daughter of William Bellingham and Elizabeth, née Spencer, and was baptised on 6 March 1704 at Rufford, Lancashire. Her father's family home been Levens Hall in Westmoreland until this was sold in 1688 as a resultant of spending by her paternal uncle, Alan.

Echlin's entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (written in 2004) records that a shell grotto she constructed in 1755–56, adorned with verses specially written by Richardson, was marked on a 1759 map of Dublin and "has recently been discovered in use as a cattle pen",

Echlin wrote an alternative ending to Richardson's Clarissa because she felt that his tale "serve only to agitate good minds" and was "horribly shocking to humanity". Echlin described her ending as "a jumble of ill-connected thoughts … badly told", An edition by Peter Sabor is included in Cambridge University Press's complete edition of Richardson's works and correspondence (2016: ).