Elizabeth Inchbald

Extract

Elizabeth Simpson was born at Standingfield in 1753. Her parents were Catholic gentry-yeomen of Suffolk, whose simple way of life did not satisfy Elizabeth’s ambitious spirit. Growing up to be intelligent and attractive, she also suffered from an impediment of speech, the desire to conquer which probably inspired her to seek a living in that profession least suited to a stammerer—the stage. Eventually, she ran away from home and arrived in London—‘that perilous town’, as she later described it, ‘which has received for centuries past . . . the bold adventurer of every denomination’. As a distinct adventuress she was attracted by the glamour of the metropolis, but she soon learned that there was a seamier side. It is surprising that so attractive, so innocent and so penniless a girl, always ready for a flirtation, should have survived these perilous weeks unscathed. However, she found security quite soon by marrying a provincial actor called Inchbald, also a Catholic, who died a few years later in 1779. She had already joined a travelling repertory company, and shared its never very prosperous fortunes, but unlike the rest of her female companions, she learned, observed and hoped. She had begun a novel; but in 1784 she had the great joy of seeing her first play accepted and produced with great success before a London audience. The hard years were over and Mrs Inchbald’s career had begun.

For the next two decades, hardly a year passed in which a new play by Mrs Inchbald was not performed.