Sophia Lee

Sophia Lee (1750-1824). Engraving by William Ridley, after Thomas Lawrence. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Sophia Lee
Born	1750 London
Died	March 13 1824(1824-Template:MONTHNUMBER-13)
Occupation	playwright, librettist

Sophia Lee (1750 - 13 March 1824) was an English novelist, dramatist and educator.

Life

Overview

Lee, a daughter of John Lee (died 1781), actor and theatrical manager, was born in London. Her earliest piece, The Chapter of Accidents, an opera based on Diderot's Père de famille, was produced by George Colman at the Haymarket Theatre on 5 August 1780. The proceeds were spent in establishing a school at Bath, where Miss Lee made a home for her sisters. Her subsequent productions included The Recess; or, A tale of other times (1785), a historical romance; and Almeyda, Queen of Grenada (1796), a tragedy in blank verse; she also contributed to her sister Harriet Lee's Canterbury Tales (1797). Sophia Lee died at her house near Clifton on 13 March 1824.

Youth and education

Lee was a daughter of actor John Lee and a sister of novelist Harriet Lee. She was born in London in 1750. Her mother died early, and Sophia supplied her place to the younger members of the family.

Career

In the midst of domestic duties she wrote a 3-act opera entitled The Chapter of Accidents, based on Diderot's Père de Famille. Harris, the manager of Covent Garden, to whom she sent it, kept it a long time, and at length suggested she should reduce it to an after-piece, cutting out the serious portions. She rejected his advice and sent the play to the George Colman the elder of the Haymarket Theatre, who recommended her to expand the play into a 5-act comedy. This was done; the play was produced on 5 August 1780, and received with great applause (Oxberry's edit. of The Chapter of Accidents). Palmer, Edwin, and Miss Farren acted in it, and although its structure is slight, it enjoyed an uninterrupted success through many seasons. It was published in 1780, reached a 2nd edition the next year, and was translated into French and German. Thomas Moore speaks of it in his Journal as a "clever comedy." It was produced for the 1st of many times at Drury Lane on 8 May 1781 and at Covent Garden on 23 April 1782.

In 1781 her father died, but Sophia had prudently devoted the profits of The Chapter of Accidents to founding a school for young ladies at Belvidere House, Bath, where she made a home for her sisters. She was a woman of great conversational powers and an excellent instructress, inspiring her pupils with liking and respect. The school became a success, and occupied nearly all Miss Lee's time.

She published, however, in 1785 a novel in 3 volumes called The Recess; or, A tale of other times, which was well received, and is among the earliest English historical romances. The book was dedicated to Sir John Elliot the physician, who had early discovered Sophia's literary talent, and it won the approval of Thomas Tickell, of Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan, and of Miss Ward (afterwards Mrs. Radcliffe), then a resident at Bath. Lemare translated it into French, and Miss Lee received from her publisher, Cadell, £50 in addition to the amount already agreed upon for the copyright.

She published in 1787 a very long and dull ballad in 156 stanzas, dealing with border warfare, and entitled A Hermit's Tale; recorded by his own Hand and found in his Cell.

20 April 1796, Almeyda, Queen of Grenada, a tragedy in blank verse written by Lee, was produced at Drury Lane. Mrs. Siddons, to whom the published play was dedicated, took the title-rôle. John Philip and Charles Kemble were also in the cast. Miss Lee acknowledged her indebtedness for the catastrophe to Shirley's Cardinal (cf. Genest, i. 341, vii. 238). The drama was unsuccessful and ran only 4 nights (Oxberry).

To the 1st volume of ‘The Canterbury Tales,’ published in 1797 by her sister Harriet, Sophia contributed the introduction, and to the later volumes of the work, 2 tales, filling about a volume and a half, called "The Young Lady's Tale, or the Two Emilys," and "The Clergyman's Tale." Sophia's work is far inferior to Harriet's.

Her circle of acquaintance in Bath was numerous and agreeable, and included General Paoli. Having made an easy competence, she gave up her school in 1803, and in the next year published in 6 volumes of epistles The Life of a Lover, in fact her earliest attempt at writing. It is supposed to contain much personal history. Madame de Salaberry translated it into French, but it did not enjoy the success of her other productions.

A comedy, The Assignation, produced at Drury Lane on 28 January 1807, with Elliston in the chief part, was a failure (Genest, viii. 35). The audience disapproved of some unfortunate personal applications wholly unforeseen by the author. It was not acted again.

On leaving Bath, Lee resided for some time in Monmouthshire, near Tintern Abbey, and later purchased a house at Clifton, which became her permanent home. She died on 13 March 1824, and was buried in Clifton church.

Publications

Poetry

• A Hermit's Tale. Dublin: 1787.

Plays

• Almeyda, Queen of Granada; a tragedy. in five acts London, W. Woodfall, for Cadell & Davies, 1791.

Novels

• The Recess; or, A tale for our times. (3 volumes), London: T. Caddell, 1783; Dublin:T. Walker, J. Beatty, H. Whitestone, R. Burton, J. Cash, and W. Sleater, 1783; New York: Arno Press, 1972.
  • (edited by April Alliston). Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2000.
• The Life of a Lover: In a series of letters. (6 volumes), London: G. & J. Robinson, 1804.

Short fiction

• The Canterbury Tales (with Harriet Lee). (5 volumes), London: G.G. & J. Robinson, 1798-1805; London: R. Bentley, 1834; New York: AMS Press, 1978.
  • The Two Emilys: A tale. Dublin: J. Moore, 1798.
  • Canterbury tales of the late Sophia Lee; consisting of The two Emilys, and Pembroke, or The clergyman's tale. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, & Green, 1826.

Translated

• Dennis Diderot, The Chapter of Accidents; a comedy, in five acts. London: T. Cadell, 1780.
• Thomas Marie de Baculard D'Arnaud, Warbeck: A pathetic tale. Dublin: S. Colbert, 1786.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets
• List of English-language playwrights

References

• Alliston, April. Virtue's Faults: Correspondences in eighteenth-Century British and French women's fiction (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996).
• Lewis, Jayne Elizabeth. "'Ev'ry Lost Relation': Historical Fictions and Sentimental Incidents in Sophia Lee's The Recess.” Eighteenth-Century Fiction 7, no. 2 (January 1995): 165-84.
•  Lee, Elizabeth (1892) "Lee, Sophia" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 32 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 379-380  . Wikisource, Web, Aug. 17, 2020.
• Lewis, Jayne Elizabeth. Mary Queen of Scots: Romance and Nation (London: Routledge, 1998).
• Nordius, Janina. "A Tale of Other Places: Sophia Lee's The Recess and Colonial Gothic." Studies in the Novel 34.2 (Summer 2002): 162-76.
• Rigliano, Matthew J. "The Recess Does Not Exist: Absorption, Literality, and Feminine Subjectivity in Sophia Lee's The Recess." Eighteenth-Century Fiction 26.2 (Winter 2013-14): 209-32.
• Sodeman, Melissa. Sentimental Memorials: Women and the Novel in Literary History (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014).
• Stevens, Anne H. British Historical Fiction Before Scott (New York: Palgrave, 2010).

External links

Poems

• Sophia Lee at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive ("A Hermit's Tale")

Plays

• Text of Almeyda, Queen of Grenada

About

• Rebecca Garwood, 'Sophia Lee (1750-1824) and Harriet Lee (1757-1851)' at www.chawton org

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Lee, Sophia
 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the 1911 Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Original article is at: Lee, Sophia