Author: STEPHENS, Eliza
Biography:
STEPHENS, Eliza (b c. 1779)
The conversion narrative in rhyming couplets entitled The Trance was first published anonymously in London in 1826 and appears to have been reprinted several times although only one other edition (1829) has come to light. In the opening lines, the author reveals her age (47) and her birthplace, Swansea in Wales. Stephens was her married name, but “the trance” that changed her life predated the marriage, when she was a girl fond of worldly pleasures. During an illness with fever, she fell into a trance in which she had a vision of the Saviour as a handsome rider with long chestnut hair who warned her that she was destined to Hell. She was shown both Hell (where she encountered a recently deceased neighbour) and Heaven, which was denied her. Her family took her for dead and prepared to bury her. But after five days God allowed her to return to life. She wrote her story in rhyming couplets to encourage others to repent as she had done. It may have been at the urging of the editor who wrote the preface, Hannah Carnes (q.v.), that she added a second part of her autobiography in which she recounts her marriage to a soldier, Robert, who served in the War of 1812 in America and was taken prisoner at the battle of Fort George (1813). She was granted permission to join him, along with their two small children, and he was released a year later in a prisoner exchange. At the coming of peace they returned to Britain. They had seven children but by 1826 all had died, including her husband. Eliza’s comfort is knowing that she will join them in Heaven. No records of her birth or death have been found, but the marriage took place at St. Mary’s, Swansea, on 13 Aug. 1801 and her birth name was Armour. (ancestry.com 18 June 2025; findmypast.com 18 June 2025) HJ