Description

Eliza Parsons, nee Phelp, (1739-1811) was an English gothic novelist. She was born in Plymouth to a comfortable middle class family and moved to London when her husband's turpentine business was affected by the American War of Independence. The family's fortunes were further debilitated by a warehouse fire and when he died in 1790, Eliza was left alone with eight children. She turned to novel writing to support her large family and produced 19 two volume novels, many of which were in the romantic or gothic vein so popular at the time. Her work is generally agreed to be of varying quality, produced as it was out of financial necessity to meet popular tastes but her two most enduring works are The Castle of Wolfenbach in 1793 and The Mysterious Warning: A German Tale in 1796. Her other works include: The History of Miss Meredith (1790), Women as They Are (1797), Anecdotes of Well-Known Families (1798) and The Valley of St. Gothard (1799).