Elizabeth Cobbold

A descendent of Edmund Waller, Elizabeth Knipe lived in Manchester and published two books of poems before her brief marriage to William Clarke of Ipswich (1790). She was a friend of Clara Reeve, author of The Progress of Romance, under whose influence she wrote a novel set in Norman England. In 1792 she married a wealthy brewer, John Cobbold; in addition to his fourteen children by a previous marriage, they had seven more together. In Ipswich she was a leader in literary and charitable organizations. Her son, the Rev. Richard Cobbold (1797-1877), was also a poet.

TEXT RECORDS:

1810 ca.Sonnet. "Era'l giorno ch'al Sol si scolorano."
1810 ca.Sonnet. On some Violets planted in my Garden by a Friend.
1810 ca.The Two Vanities, — A Fable.
1810 ca.Three Sonnets.
1818 ca.Sonnet to Lord Byron.

PUBLICATIONS:

Poems on various subjects. 1783.
Six narrative poems. 1787.
The sword; or, Father Bertrand's history of his own times. 1791.
The mince pie, an heroic epistle. 1800.
Cliff valentines. 1813, 1814.
An ode on the victory of Waterloo. 1815.
Monody to the memory of Mrs. Byles. 1818.
Poems, with a memoir of the author [ed. Laetitia Jermyn]. 1825.

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

English

no formal education

woman writer
painter
poet
novelist

European Magazine
Lady's Monthly Museum
Ladies' Fashionable Repository

Rev. Richard Cobbold
Richard Llwyd
Capel Lofft
Clara Reeve
Joshua Reynolds

REFERENCE:

DNB; not NCBEL; CBEL (3rd ed).

European Magazine 10 (1786) 290; Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors (1816); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 94 (December 1824) 569; obituary in New Monthly Magazine NS 15 (February 1825) 83; Annual Register for 1825 (1825) 236; Memoir by Laetitia Jermyn in Poems (1825) [portrait]; Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Todd, Dictionary of ... Women Writers 1660-1800 (1987); C. R. Johnson, Provincial Poetry 1789-1839 (1992); Jackson, Romantic Poetry by Women: A Bibliography (1993); Feldman, British Women Poets (1997).

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Elizabeth Cobbold:

1.	1787  Anonymous, Review of Cobbold, Six Narrative Poems; The Critical Review 64 (October 1787) 308.
2.	1816  Capel Lofft to Richard Polwhele, 22 October 1816; Polwhele, Traditions and Recollections (1826) 2:690.
3.	1820 ca.  Richard Llwyd, "Sonnet, Address'd to Mrs. Cobbold on her painting a half-length picture of Mr. Llwyd's Mother" 1820 ca.; Llwyd, Poems (1837) 247-48.
4.	1825  Mrs. Cockle, "Tribute to the Memory of Mrs. Cobbold" Cobbold, Poems (1825) 43-45.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Elizabeth Cobbold:

1.	1816  Anonymous, in Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors (1816) 192, 422.
2.	1824  Anonymous, Obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 94 (December 1824) 569.
3.	1825  Obituary in New Monthly Magazine NS 15 (February 1825) 83.
4.	1825  Obituary in Annual Register 66 (1825) 236.
5.	1825  Laetitia Jermyn, Memoir in Cobbold, Poems (1825) 3-42.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)

1.	1818 ca.  Lord Byron:   Elizabeth Cobbold, "Sonnet to Lord Byron" 1818 ca.; Poems (1825) 100.