{{Short description|English writer and poet}} {{about||the Scottish-born author and academic|Elizabeth Reid Boyd|the American film actress|Betty Boyd}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2016}} {{Use British English|date=October 2016}} {{Infobox writer | embed = | honorific_prefix = | name = Elizabeth Boyd | honorific_suffix = | image = | image_size = | image_upright = | landscape = | alt = | caption = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | pseudonym = Louisa or Eloisa | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth year|1710}} | birth_place = | death_date = {{death year and age|1745|1710}} | death_place = | resting_place = | occupation = Writer, poet | language = English | nationality = | citizenship = | education = | alma_mater = | period = | genre = | subject = | movement = | notable_works = | spouse = | partner = | children = | relatives = | awards = | signature = | signature_alt = | signature_size = | signature_type = | years_active = 1727-1745 | module = | website = | portaldisp = }}
'''Elizabeth Boyd''' (c. 1710 – 1745) was an English writer and poet who supported her family by writing novels, poetry, a play, and a periodical.<ref>''The Snail: or The lady's lucubrations''. Being entertaining letters between a lady at St. James's, and her friend at Dover, on new and curious subjects. By Eloisa. (To be continued monthly.) [London]: E. Boyd, 1745.</ref> She also wrote under the noms de plume '''Louisa''' or '''Eloisa'''. Boyd is one of three known members of the Shakespeare Ladies Club.<ref name="Dobson">{{citation|last=Dobson|first=Michael|year=1992|title=The Making of the National Poet: Shakespeare, Adaptation and Authorship, 1660-1769|place=Oxford, England|publisher=Clarendon Press|isbn=0198183232|pages=151–154}}.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Straub |first=Kristina |title=The disappearance of Elizabeth Boyd in the history of Shakespeare's Westminster Abbey monument {{!}} Folger Shakespeare Library |url=https://www.folger.edu/blogs/shakespeare-and-beyond/elizabeth-boyd-shakespeare-westminster-abbey-monument/ |access-date=2023-03-22 |website=www.folger.edu |language=en-US}}</ref>
==Life and work== thumb|Title-page to Elizabeth Boyd's novel of 1732
Little is known of her birth or career. From her writings it can be gleaned that she came from a large family who had supported the Stuart cause.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Brown|first1=Susan|title=Elizabeth Boyd|url=http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=boydel|publisher=The Orlando Project|accessdate=16 April 2016|date=2006|archive-date=27 July 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160727032358/http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=boydel|url-status=dead}}</ref> Her father enjoyed Stuart favour, her mother is said to have been worn down by the care of many children. It was to support her ailing mother that she took up writing. The subscription lists to her work contain many aristocrats which suggests the family had been well connected but had fallen on hard times.<ref name="Lonsdale">Lonsdale, Roger (ed) (1990). ''Eighteenth Century Women Poets: An Oxford Anthology''. Oxford University Press. page 134. {{ISBN|0192827758}}.</ref><ref name="Brackett">{{cite book|last1=Brackett|first1=Virginia|title=The Facts on File Companion to British Poetry: 17Th and 18th Centuries|date=2008|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-1438108353|page=39|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3XTxs-X-gSwC&q=Elizabeth+Boyd+%28died+1745%29&pg=PA39|accessdate=16 April 2016}}</ref>
She first published poetry under the name of Louisa, ''Variety:A Poem'' (1727) and ''Verses on the King's Birthday'' (1730).<ref name="Lonsdale" /> Her first major work was a novel entitled ''The Happy Unfortunate; Or The female page''. This appeared in 1732 and was reprinted in 1737.<ref>Schofield, Mary Ann, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=_yKSK1zV268C Masking and Unmasking the Female Mind Disguising Romances in Feminine Fiction 1713–1719]'', Chapter 2, University of Delaware Press (1999) ISBN 0874133653</ref> It is a masquerade romance in which the lead female characters hide behind masks for most of the story. With money from this she set up a stationers shop in George Court, Princes Street, London, near Leicester Fields<ref name="Lonsdale" />
The ''Humorous Miscellany'' of 1733 contains her best known poem ''On the Death of an Infant of five Days old; being a beautiful but abortive Birth.'' She wrote a play ''Don Sancho, Or The Students Whim'', (1739), which was never performed.<ref name="Lonsdale"/><ref name="Brackett"/> However, ''Don Sancho'' was given a reading in the green room of Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.<ref name="Fullard">{{cite ODNB|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/45835|title=Boyd, Elizabeth [''pseud.'' Louisa] (1727-1745)|last1=Fullard|first1=Joyce|year=2004|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/45835|accessdate=28 April 2016}}</ref> ''Don Sancho'' takes place in an Oxford College garden and features the ghosts of William Shakespeare and John Dryden.<ref name="Fullard"/> At the end of the play, after the ghosts return to the afterlife, Minerva creates a monument to Shakespeare; this ending is why many Shakespearean scholars believe Boyd was involved in the Shakespeare Ladies Club and, specifically, the club's fundraising efforts for the Shakespeare memorial statue in Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey.<ref name="Dobson"/>
''The Snail: Or the Lady's Lucubrations'' (1745) was an ambitious project to produce a regular periodical aimed at aristocratic Ladies. Only one volume was produced and there is an indication in her writing that her health was failing.<ref name="Lonsdale"/> It contains veiled attacks on the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, who twenty years previously had engaged in Jacobite intrigue but had abandoned their support in favour of what many saw as their own career advancement.<ref name="Lonsdale" /><ref name="Brackett"/><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=adw_Me-YybAC&q=duke%2520and%2520duchess%2520of%2520marlborough%2520anne%2520jacobitism&pg=PT44|title=Jacobite Dictionary|last=McKerracher|first=Mairead|date=2012-06-30|publisher=Neil Wilson Publishing|isbn=9781906000257|language=en}}</ref>
==Bibliography==
=== Novels === * ''The Happy-Unfortunate; Or, the Female-Page: a Novel, Etc''
=== Periodicals === * ''The Snail: Or The Lady's Lucubrations. Being entertaining letters between a lady at St. James's, and her friend at Dover, on new and curious subjects''
=== Plays === * ''Don Sancho, Or The Students Whim''
=== Poems === * ''On the Death of an Infant of five Days old; being a beautiful but abortive Birth'' * ''Truth, a poem : Address'd to the Right Honourable William Lord Harrington'' * ''Variety: A Poem, 1727'' * ''Verses Congratulatory, on the Happy Marriage of the Right Honourable the Lady Diana Spencer with the Lord John Russel'' * ''The humorous miscellany; or, riddles for the beaux. Humbly inscribed to the ... Earl of Cardigan''
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links==
=== Works by Elizabeth Boyd ===
* ''On the Death of an Infant of five Days old; being a beautiful but abortive Birth'' by Elizabeth Boyd, 1733. [https://web.archive.org/web/20160505162902/http://www.poetrynook.com/poem/death-infant-five-days-old Poem in full at Poetry Nook website] Accessed April 2016 * ELOISA, pseud. ''The Snail: or the Lady's Lucubrations. Being Entertaining Letters between a Lady at St. James's, and Her Friend at Dover, on New and Curious Subjects. by Eloisa. (to Be Continued Monthly.)''. London: E. Boyd, 1745. Print. [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/560159426 Available through WorldCat]. * Boyd, Elizabeth. ''Don Sancho Or, the Students Whim, a Ballad Opera of Two Acts, with Minerva's Triumph, a Masque''. New York: Garland, 1974. Print. [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/39478320 Available through WorldCat.] * BOYD, Elizabeth. ''The Female Page: a Genuine and Interesting History Relating to Some Persons of Distinction, Etc''. London: Olive Payne, 1737. [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/855513995 Available through WorldCat]. * Boyd, Elizabeth. ''Admiral Haddock: Or, the Progress of Spain. a Poem''. Farmington Hills, Mich: Thomson Gale, 2005. Internet resource. [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/690191325 Available through WorldCat]. * Boyd, Elizabeth. ''Variety: a Poem, 1727''. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Women Writers Project, 2001. Internet resource. [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/918995081 Available through WorldCat]. * Boyd, Elizabeth. ''Verses Congratulatory, on the Happy Marriage of the Right Honourable the Lady Diana Spencer with the Lord John Russel. by Elizabeth Boyd''. Farmington Hills, Mich: Thomson Gale, 2005. [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/690464529 Available through WorldCat]. * Boyd, Elizabeth. ''The Humorous Miscellany; Or, Riddles for the Beaux. Humbly Inscribed to the ... Earl of Cardigan. by E B''. Farmington Hills, Mich: Thomson Gale, 2005. [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/690357598 Available through WorldCat.]
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boyd, Elizabeth}} Category:1710s births Category:1745 deaths Category:18th-century English poets Category:18th-century English novelists Category:18th-century English dramatists and playwrights Category:18th-century English women writers Category:English women poets Category:English women novelists Category:English women dramatists and playwrights Category:18th-century women poets