Life
1758-1816, b. Belfast, d. Harrowgate; sister of orientalist, Charles Hamilton; lived in Scotland, wrote on education; philanthropist; Letters on Elementary Principles of Education (1810), German trans. 1832; her many novels include The Cottagers of Glenburnie (1808), many editions incl. German trans, 1827; Letters of a Hindu Rajah, influence by her br. Charles Hamilton (1753-1792), capt. of India Company, and fnd. mbr. Asiatic Society of Calcutta; Memoirs of Modern Philosophers, a parody of Godwin’s circle; d. Harrowgate. RR PI DIW DIL DUB [ODNB]
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Criticism
Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica: Irish Worthies (1821), Vol. II, ‘Elizabeth Hamilton’, pp.297-304; ‘Charles Hamilton’, Ibid., pp.294-97.
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Commentary
B. G. MacCarthy, The Female Pen, Women Writers and Novelists 1621-1818 (Cork UP 1994), with epigram from Elizabeth Hamilton [inter al.]: ‘You know how female writers are looked down upon. the women fear and hate, the men ridicule and dislike them’; she is discussed with others in Chp. XII, under the heading ‘The Didactic Novel with Prominent Local Colour’. Additional Bibliography lists, Elizabeth Hamilton, The Cottagers of Glenburnie, A Tale for the Farmers’ Ingle-Book (NY: Garland Press 1974); The Illustrious Lady, A Biography of Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine and Duchess of Cleveland (London: Hamish Hamilton 1980); Gina Luria, ed., Letters Addressed to the Daughter of a Nobleman on the Formation of the Religious and Moral Principle (Garland 1974).
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References
D. J. O’Donoghue, Poets of Ireland (Dublin: Hodges Figgis 1912), cites poems in Scottish anthologies; also The Cottagers of Glenburnie (n.d.).
Belfast Central Public Library holds Ballymuckbeg I/fict; also, Poems I/820.
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