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Elizabeth Carter


portrait of Elizabeth Carter

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(b. Dec. 16, 1717, Deal, Kent – d. Feb. 19, 1806, 21 Clarges Street, Mayfair, London )

Gender: F

Elizabeth Carter (1717-1806) was the daughter of a clergyman in Deal, Kent, and the eldest of five children; her mother died when she was ten, and after her father remarried, she took the added responsibility of caring for the two children of his second family, including tutoring her youngest brother in classics to prepare him for Cambridge. Her father gave all his children the same education, so Carter learned Greek, Latin and Hebrew with her father, French with a Huguenot family in Canterbury, and was self-taught in Italian and Spanish. (Later in life she added Portuguese and Arabic.) Carter’s father was a friend of Edward Cave, publisher of the Gentleman’s Magazine, which published a number of her poems and translations. In 1738 she moved to London, where she became a regular contributor to the magazine and a friend of the young Samuel Johnson. Cave published a book of her poems in 1738, when she was only twenty-one years old, though she remained anonymous. She also published a translation of Jean-Pierre de Crousaz’s French commentary on Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man and Francesco Algarotti’s Italian Il Newtonianismo per le Dame (1739). Carter became a close friend of Catherine Talbot who, together with Archbishop Secker, encouraged her to publish the first English translation from Greek of the works of Epictetus. This was published in 1758 (Talbot secured many of the subscribers) and earned her renown throughout Europe, as well as the sum of £1,000, with which she bought a house in Deal where she lived for the rest of her life. Elizabeth Montagu sought Carter out and they became intimate friends. Carter spent the summers in Deal and the winters in lodgings at Clarges Street in London, from which she regularly visited Montagu, Vesey and other members of the Bluestocking circle. She travelled to Spa and Germany with Montagu and the Earl of Bath in 1763, and accompanied Laura Pulteney to Paris in 1782. She began to correspond with Montagu in 1758, and following her death in 1806, her nephew Montagu Pennington published her correspondence with Montagu, Talbot and Vesey. Of her letters to Montagu, 219 survive in Pennington’s edition, and the manuscripts of over 700 letters to her from Montagu can be found in the Huntington collection.

Also known as:

  • Elizabeth Carter

Authorities

Electronic Enlightenment DOIexternal link
Oxford DNB DOIexternal link
VIAF Authority File IDexternal link
Wikipediaexternal link

Mentioned in 53 letters

Title EMCO ID
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Hester Thrale Piozzi 8
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1013
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1017
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1027
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1052
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1054
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1063
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1064
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1065
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1067
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1069
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton of Frankley 1072
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1076
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton of Frankley 1077
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1083
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1106
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1108
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton of Frankley 1113
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1128
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1142
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1148
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1187
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1199
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1213
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1219
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1228
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1229
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to James Beattie 1785
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Mary Robinson 1814
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to James Beattie 1868
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to James Beattie 1892
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1942
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1946
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 1991
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 2032
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 2044
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 2052
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Mary Robinson 2133
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to James Beattie 2167
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to James Beattie 2198
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Mrs. Ord 2320
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Sarah Sloane Stanley 2357
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 2502
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 2621
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Frances Evelyn Boscawen (Glanville) 2684
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 2702
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 3086
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 3095
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Morris Robinson 3127
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 3290
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 3364
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter 3567
Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to John Burrows 4534

Recipient of 806 letters

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