# Alethea Lewis

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{{Short description|English novelist (1749–1827)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2019}}
'''Alethea Lewis''' (born 19 December 1749, buried 12 November 1827) was an English novelist, born at [Acton](/source/Acton%2C_Cheshire), near [Nantwich](/source/Nantwich), [Cheshire](/source/Cheshire). She also used the pseudonym '''Eugenia de Acton'''. Her subject-matter centres on her profound Christianity and her belief in the rewards of virtue. Her work displays great erudition.

==Life==
Alethea's father, James Brereton, was an Anglican cleric. She was two years old when her mother died and her father sent her away to live with her maternal grandfather, who was a linen draper in [Framlingham](/source/Framlingham), Suffolk. Her father later remarried and had other daughters.

Alethea became engaged to William Springal Levett, son of an [Aldeburgh](/source/Aldeburgh) physician and a friend of the poet [George Crabbe](/source/George_Crabbe), but he died in 1774 before they could marry. In 1788 she married Augustus Towle Lewis, a surgeon with a criminal past of which she may have been unaware. The couple lived in [Philadelphia](/source/Philadelphia) for a year, then returned to England and settled finally in [Penkridge](/source/Penkridge), [Staffordshire](/source/Staffordshire), where she died in 1827.<ref>Isobel Grundy, "Lewis, Alethea (1749–1827)", ODNB, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/45855 Retrieved 27 September 2014.]</ref>

==Work==
Of the novels attributed to Lewis, some are unquestionably hers, but others more doubtful. The latter include ''Vicissitudes in Genteel Life'' (1794)<ref>[https://chawtonhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Vicissitudes-in-Genteel-Life.pdf PDF], [Chawton House](/source/Chawton_House).</ref> and ''The Microcosm'' (1801). Some of the more uncertain works (''Things by their Right Names'', 1812, ''Rhoda'', 1816, and ''Isabella'', 1823) have also been attributed to [Frances Jacson](/source/Frances_Jacson).

Lewis's themes mostly centre on her profound Christianity and the rewards of virtue. Her work is self-conscious and erudite. Some (''Essays on the Art of being Happy'', 1803, ''A Tale without a Title: Give it what you Please'', 1804, ''The Nuns of the Desert, or, The Woodland Witches'', 1805, and the four-volume ''The Discarded Daughter'', 1810) were published under the pseudonym Eugenia de Acton.<ref>Isobel Grundy, "Lewis, Alethea (1749–1827)", ODNB, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/45855 Retrieved 27 September 2014.]</ref> Her plots have been called "overcrowded and creaky", but with "a strain of creative unconventionality".<ref>Orlando site, Cambridge University. [http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=lewial Retrieved 27 September 2014.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160727044959/http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=lewial |date=27 July 2016 }}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Althea}}
Category:1749 births
Category:1827 deaths
Category:18th-century English novelists
Category:18th-century English women novelists
Category:18th-century pseudonymous women writers
Category:18th-century pseudonymous writers
Category:19th-century English novelists
Category:19th-century English women novelists
Category:19th-century pseudonymous women writers
Category:19th-century pseudonymous writers
Category:Anglican writers
Category:People from Northwich
Category:People from Penkridge

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Alethea Lewis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alethea_Lewis) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alethea_Lewis?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.