Elizabeth Carter was born in Deal, Kent into a gentry family, members of which had been active supporters of the Parliamentary cause in the civil war, and which, in the eighteenth century, was loyal to the Hanoverian succession. She was the first child and eldest daughter of Reverend Nicolas Carter, perpetual curate of Deal Chapel, an accomplished linguist and author of several pamphlets, and his first wife Margaret Swayne, an heiress who is supposed to have married with a fortune of £15,000 which she lost in the South Sea Bubble in 1720. After she died in 1728?, Nicolas Carter married again. The children of his second wife, Mary Bean, were much loved by Elizabeth Carter who played an active rôle in their upbringing, not only cooking an

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First published 30 March 2001

Citation: Hawley, Judith. "Elizabeth Carter". The Literary Encyclopedia. 30 March 2001.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=761, accessed 20 November 2009.]