Author: Wells, Elizabeth
Biography:
WELLS, Elizabeth (fl 1812)
Elizabeth Wells appears to have published only one book but it is a substantial collection of serious poems on religious, social, and political subjects, opening with a dialogue between a novice and her friend, a nun who in her attempt to dissuade the novice from following the same path discloses the reason for her own decision—her sense of responsibility for the death of her lover in a duel over her. The book was published by a good London publisher, Rivington, a fact that probably means that the author had the means to pay the printing costs. No advertisements or reviews have been found; her name cannot have been well known. The poems themselves suggest a mature woman, well educated but not given to bookish allusions; pious but not dogmatic; and unmarried. Poems on the deaths of her parents take comfort in the belief that the three of them will be reunited in heaven. Though the book came out in London, she might have lived anywhere in the country, and her name is too common for reliable identification.