- Harriet Lee
Harriet Lee (1757,
London -August 1 ,1851 Clifton,England ) was a novelist and playwright.Born the daughter of actor John Lee, Harriet Lee grew up in an artistic family. In 1786 she published "The Errors of Innocence", an epistolary novel. In 1797 she completed another novel, "Clara Lennox", and that same year she published the first volume of a collection of twelve stories, "Canterbury Tales" (completed in 1805). Her sister,
Sophia Lee (1750–1824), also a successful author and dramatist, contributed two episodes to the first volume of this lengthy project. One episode, "Kruitzner", was dramatized by Lord Byron in 1821 under the title of "Werner, or the Inheritance". Harriet Lee then wrote it as a play, re-titled "The Three Strangers"; it debuted atLondon 'sCovent Garden in 1825.After the death of his wife
Mary Wollstonecraft ,William Godwin pursued Lee, then 41, impressed by her wit. The two corresponded for several months during 1798, in which Harriet rebuked him several times for his egotism. When Godwin visited her to make a formal proposal, she rejected him, citing their different philosophies and religious beliefs. She and her sisters opened a school at Belvedere House in the city of Bath where they became friends with novelistAnn Radcliffe . She spent her final years in the village of Clifton inBristol .Harriet Lee lived to be 94. She died in Clifton in 1851 and was interred in the Church cemetery there, with her sisters.
References
* "British Authors Before 1800: A Biographical Dictionary", edited by Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycraft, New York, The H. W. Wilson Company, 1952.
* April Alliston, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16287 ‘Lee, Harriet (1757/8–1851)’] , "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 13 November 2006
* Rebecca Garwood, [http://www.chawton.org/library/biographies/lee.html 'Sophia Lee (1750-1824) and Harriet Lee (1757-1851)' at www.chawton org]"Adapted from the article [http://www.wikinfo.org/wiki.phtml?title=Harriet_Lee Harriet Lee] , from Wikinfo, licensed under the
GNU Free Documentation License ."
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