I've uncovered more information about the life and family of obscure writer Eliza Kirkham Mathews (referred to in this blog as EKM). Her aunt Sarah Strong lost her husband Richard in 1786, when her children were still young. But he seems to have left her financially secure, as compared to EKM's mother Mary, whose husband George was also an apothecary. Although raised in genteel circumstances, EKM was poverty=stricken and alone in the world, receiving very little help from her better-off relatives. EKM left her native Devon and ended up in Wales, working as a teacher. There she met the youthful comic actor Charles Mathews who was struggling to make a name for himself on the theatre circuit. They married in September, 1797. That same month, Eliza got heart-wrenching news from her aunt Sarah; her teenage cousins, Sarah Amelia and Maria, had both died within a few days of each other, in an inexplicable fashion.
   EKM’s writing contains many autobiographical elements, and this tragic tale found expression in one her elegies (quoted below) and was narrated in one of her children's books.
    Ellinor, or, the Young Governess was published in 1802—the year EKM died--by the York publisher, Thomas Wilson & Son, who also published  more children’s books posthumously. This suggests that EKM approached this local publisher in the final years of her life with some of her novel manuscripts,  and was encouraged to write some children’s books instead. Her earnings, if any, would have been meagre, but it was better than nothing.

    I've been doing a deep dive on the works of a forgotten female author of Austen's time, Eliza Kirkham Mathews (EKM) (1772-1802), trying to confirm or disprove her authorship of novels published from her teenage years to years after her death. Recently, I gave a synopsis of the 1807 novel Griffith Abbey, a domestic-sentimental-historical novel with some Gothic touches. The author is given as "Mrs. C. Mathews." Scholars have differed in their attributions. Does "Mrs. C. Mathews" refer to EKM, the wife of Charles Mathews, or is it "Mrs. Charlotte Mathews," an authoress who published two novels before 1800?
   To answer this question, I tried an approach which so far as I can tell hasn't been tried before--I actually read Griffith Abbey. I wanted to see if it resembles EKM's style in What Has Been, (a novel she undoubtedly wrote) or  does it more closely resemble the style of Mrs. Charlotte Mathews, authoress of the 1794 novel Simple Facts, or, The History of an Orphan? 
   There are many similarities between these two authoresses--both the Mrs. Mathews tended to move their stories along at a brisk pace, unlike, say, Charlotte Smith or Mary Meeke, two popular writers who could turn out novels of four or five volumes. Both featured heroines who are orphaned and end up marrying their childhood sweethearts. But there are many such similarities between all novels of this era. You can scarcely ever find a heroine with two living parents. These stories all feature the travails of unimpeachably virtuous heroines, they stress Christian morality and they use the same narrative tics and plot points...

  I am examining the novels attributed to the Regency-era writer Eliza Kirkham Mathews with the help of Artificial Intelligence tools to see if I can spot any distinctive traits setting her work apart from the authors with whom she’s been confused. But first, a review and discussion of one of those novels, Griffith Abbey, published five years after her death. This novel is not extraordinarily well-written, being a yet another reiteration of the usual tale of a foundling heroine who turns out to be well-born. All the same, I found many tidbits I want to share, including a passionate editorial against slavery.
   One would naturally assume from the title that Griffith Abbey is a Gothic novel, but it is in fact a domestic-sentimental novel with just a few Gothic tickles. Austen never went near a battlefield in her books, despite the fact that England was at war with France for most of her life, but EKM includes America's Revolutionary war in her plot.
   Our story begins on the slopes of Mount Snowdon in Wales, where Ernest, a kindly old peasant, finds a beautiful little toddler all alone in a cavern...

​Disclaimer: When I quote opinions from this two hundred-year-old book, I am not endorsing them. 
    In an early post on this blog, I referenced Matilda, or, the Barbadoes Girl (1816) by the prolific author Barbara Hofland as an example of a book which openly discussed enslavement, plantations, and the slave trade. I was countering the argument that Jane Austen had to pull her punches when discussing slavery. Hofland's pro-abolition opinions, stated openly by the "good" characters in the book, were not controversial at the time, even in a book written for children.
    The abolitionist message of this book reflects the reality that evangelical Christians were the driving force behind the anti-slavery crusade in England. That said, the moral issue of slavery and the welfare of enslaved persons is subordinate to the personal reformation of the main character, a spoiled daughter of a planter who repents of her bad temper and selfish behavior after she is taken into a loving Christian household. In addition, the topic of slavery is left behind in favour of a different moral danger in the last chapters of the book.
       Matilda, or, The Barbadoes Girl was reprinted for over fifty years, which is pretty good innings for an author. In most editions, the title is simply The Barbadoes Girl. I have not found any contemporary reviews. One American journal praised Mrs. Hofland’s “interesting little stories which are not less marked with tenderness than with morality” but the reviewer admitted he had not had time to read The Barbadoes Girl. Here is a synopsis...