Author: JOHNSON, Elizabeth
Biography:
JOHNSON, Elizabeth (d c. 1815: BL)
The identification of the poet Elizabeth Johnson, teasingly close, remains out of reach. Yet to be identified are her parentage, life dates, education, and occupation. Her first initial and surname are stated in Poems on Various Entertaining Subjects. By Narrator (1815). The title of Lucinda Johnson’s (q.v.) 1819 volume of poems, A Tribute to the Memory of Mrs. Elizh. Johnson, late of Chapel-town, near Leeds, establishes Elizabeth’s given name, her address, and, within three years, her death. She almost certainly was related to Cornelius Johnson and his wife, Elizabeth (Horley) Johnson, of Soham, Cambridge. The evidence is two-fold: the notation on the title-page of the BL’s copy of Poems; and the will of John Johnson of Leeds (written 1837, probated 1845). The BL notation identifies “Narrator” as the “Rev. John Slack, Wesleyan Minister.” In 1815, Slack was the minister of a Wesleyan Methodist chapel at Stokesley, Yorkshire (the place of publication of Elizabeth Johnson’s Poems). Slack’s wife, Sarah, was Cornelius and Elizabeth Johnson’s daughter. In his will, John Johnson identifies “Sarah” and “Elizabeth” as his two still-living sisters. Though the poet Elizabeth evidently was related to John Johnson of Leeds and to Sarah (Johnson) Slack of Stokesley, she was not their sister. Bibliographical markers suggest that Elizabeth probably died late in 1815 and that her death interrupted the poets’ original intention, which was to publish Elizabeth’s and Lucinda’s poems in a single volume. That this was so is suggested by Lucinda’s A Tribute having been published in 1819 while its Preface is dated “Stokesley, October 16th, 1815.” Also, although the half-title page in the BL copy of Lucinda’s book reads “Poems, by Elizabeth and Lucinda Johnson. Private,” only Lucinda’s poems appear in A Tribute. Another curious detail is bibliographically relevant: the title-page of Elizabeth’s Johnson’s Poems gives Stokesley as the place of publication, “Printed by W. Pratt,” but the colophon is “Smart, Printer, Huddersfield.” Lucinda’s Johnson’s A Tribute has the reverse: the title-page states Huddersfield as the place of publication, “Printed by T. Smart, King-Street,” but the colophon is “W. Pratt, Printer.” (BL catalogue; PROB 11/2016) JC