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Elizabeth Griffith was born in Glamorgan, Wales, to Dublin theater manager Thomas Griffith and Jane Foxcroft Griffith on 11 October, 1727.^[2] “The family settled in Dublin, where they brought up Elizabeth to be a sociable child, cheerful and at ease among the theatrical community” (ODNB). In addition to her theatrical experience, her father died in 1744; his death brought the family economic hardships. Her Dublin acting début took place on 13 October, 1749, when she played Juliet to Thomas Sheridan's ageing Romeo at the Smock Alley Theatre. She specialized in tragic roles, including Jane Shore and Cordelia in King Lear (ODNB).Elizabeth met her future husband, Richard Griffith, in 1746. (ODNB) On May 12,^[3] 1751, they married in secret. After the clandestine wedding, gave birth to two children, Catherine and Richard.

Elizabeth and Richard’s five year courtship provided the basis for her first publication, A Series of Genuine Letters Between Henry and Frances, published in six volumes between 1757 and 1770. The letters include many references to “literary and philosophical subjects of mutual interest, like the letters of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope or Cicero's Offices; Griffith valued the opportunity to build upon her education (Staves). Letters between Henry and Frances was an immediate success that generated fame, but not wealth, for both writers. Richard traveled once the couple had married and was absent for extended periods. He had borrowed a large sum of money to develop a linen business, which went bankrupt in 1756. During this time, and while Richard was avoiding debtor's court, income generated by Griffith's writing sustained the family. Griffith continued her acting career Covent Garden, London from 1753 to 1755 (Napier), though she never played more than minor characters. During the initial success of the Letters, Elizabeth published many translations of French works and plays. Between 1764 and 1769, she published four plays with varying degrees of success. Griffith’s third play, The Double Mistake (1766) was well received at Covent Garden, the success of which emboldened her to approach David Garrick for help staging her next play. Griffith collaborated with Garrick to produce her most successful comedy, The School for Rakes, in 1769 (Napier). While the two had a tumultuous relationship, Garrick’s influence on Griffith was clear; so much so, that even after his death that in the advertisement for her comedy, The Times, she attributed the “first idea of this piece” to the late Garrick. Though the connections she made at Smock Alley Theater in Dublin had more influence on the play’s production. Richard Sheridan, the son of her acting mentor Thomas Sheridan, produced The Times, at Drury Lane. While her fame was not the direct result of her acting career, Griffith’s theatrical connections were invaluable to her success.

Griffith’s literary production was steady from 1760 to 1779, garnering her significant notoriety in the literary circles of London. She published essays, epistolary novels, novelettes, translations, and literary criticism. This large body of diverse works suggests that Griffith was a hard-working professional writer, though the last decade of her life was free of the financial struggles endured by she and Richard throughout their marriage.

Griffith's son worked for the East India Company as an accountant' and eventually returned to Ireland in 1786. He settled at Millicent House in Kildare, and Griffith and her husband lived out the rest of their days at this residence. Griffith died at Millicent House in 1793.

I have decided that my main focus on the Elizabeth Griffith(s) wiki article will be to work on her Biography and Bibliography sections, but I will not be able to contain myself when it comes to making sure that the un-cited information throughout, is cited. Hopefully this will be a manageable amount of work. If it were up to me, and I were a computer wiz, I would try to fix and rewrite the entire article!

Working Bibliography for Author Project

Brant, Clare and Diane Purkiss Ed. Women, Texts and Histories 1575-1760. London: Routlege,   

1992. Print

Eshleman, Dorothy Hughes. Elizabeth Griffith: A Biographical and Critical Study. Ann Arbor:

     Edwards Brothers, INC, 1949. Print.

Finberg, Melinda C. Ed. Eighteenth-Century Women Dramatists. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008.

       Print.

Griffith, Elizabeth. The Delicate Distress. Ed. Cynthia Booth Ricciardi and Susan Staves. Lexington: Kentucky UP, 1997. Print.

Schellenberg, Betty A. The Professionalization of Women Writers in Eighteenth-Century Britain.

  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Print.

Schlueter, Paul and Janet Schlueter Ed. An Encyclopedia of British Women Writers: Revised and Expanded Edition. New

Brunswick: Rutgers UP,

Staves, Susan. A Literary History of Women’s Writing in Britain, 1660-1789. Cambridge:

  Cambridge University Press, 2006. Print.

Todd, Janet Ed. A Dictionary of British and American Writers 1660-1800. Totowa: Rowman &

   Allenheld, 1985. Print.