Author: James, Eliza
Biography:
JAMES, Eliza (fl 1807)
A member of the Durham Theatre troupe, she marshalled an impressive roster of subscribers, mostly local, for her 1807 volume, Hours of Leisure. Poems, by Mrs. James. Besides her book, the only known reference to her is in an article on “Provincial Drama” in the 1807 Monthly Mirror: she is fine of form with handsome features, “fit for the rank she holds in the theatre.” A “Mr. James,” possibly the poet’s husband, is another member of the troupe, “a singer of the first class … with the abilities of a good actor.” She is unlikely to have been the “Eliz James,” “pauper,” born in the county of Durham, who died, age 79, in 1841. In the “Introduction” to her poems, she expresses feelings of regret, possibly of resentment for “having to … roam crowded, yet isolated in the mazes of the stage.” Her melancholy and frustration are echoed by the author of “To Eliza James, of the Durham Theatre, on Her Poems,” printed in the volume: she led a lonely early life “confin’d to Keswick’s Lake” (from whence she migrated to Derbyshire and then to Durham); the poet-actress was “too long confin’d to tread the humble stage … a mere meteor shine for other’s fame.” She dedicated her book, “with gratitude,” to Lady Anne Katharine MacDonnell, countess of Antrim. Among her notable purchasers: Lord Byron (4 copies); the countess of Antrim’s husband, Sir Henry Vane Tempest; several other aristocrats and gentry, the marquess of Tavistock (4 copies), Lady Boynton, the baron and baroness De Montesquieu, and Sir James Innes-Ker; a son and a daughter of the actor James Cawdell (q.v.); two possible relatives of the poet Mary Heron (q.v.), Walter Heron of Newcastle, and Sir Cuthbert Heron of South Shields; several active or retired MPs; the soon-to-be secretary to the Treasury Richard Wharton (q.v.) (six copies); and six members of the Taylor family, including the MP for Canterbury, Edward Taylor, who was visited by Jane and Cassandra Austen in 1794. She supplied a "Recommendatory" preface to Edward Hampden Rose's (q.v.) Trifles, in Verse and Prose. (ancestry.com 2 Nov. 2023; Monthly Mirror n.s. 1 [1807], 291) JC
Other Names:
- Mrs. James
- Mrs. [Eliza] James