Frances Sheridan was born Frances Chamberlain in Dublin in 1724. Her father, the Rev. Philip Chamberlain, an Anglican pluralist clergyman, regarded literacy as a worse than superfluous female accomplishment and forbade her to learn to read or write. This edict (which anticipated Anthony Absolute's similarly impotent judgement in
The Rivals) had the pleasantly predictable result of inspiring her, with the connivance of her brothers, to become a voracious surreptitious reader and author. The earliest product of this passionate subterfuge was a two-volume romance
Eugenia and Adelaide, first published some years after her death in 1791. It was to be the encouraging response of the elderly Samuel Richardson to this manuscript, that persuaded her to embark upon
The Memoirs of Miss Sidney1145 words
Citation: Brunstrom, Conrad. "Frances Sheridan". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 November 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4054, accessed 12 October 2024.]