Harriet Lee

Katharine Rogers (CUNY Graduate Center)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837.
Vol. editors: Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Daniel Robinson (Widener University), Emily Rohrbach (University of Durham)

Dates

Born 1757
Died 1851
Activity 1777-1851

Places

Born in England
Active in England

Activities

Primary

Novelist

Resources

Lee's Works

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Harriet Lee’s best work is

Canterbury Tales

, a collection of short stories and novellas that offers acute social observation, biting satire on upper class irresponsibility, pathos, suspense, and thoughtful, judicious morality. At her best, Lee wrote with tart realism and a good sense that kept her tales relatively free of the Gothic sensationalism and effusive sensibility that marred so much fiction in her time.

She was born in London in 1757, the third of the five children of John and Anna Sophia Lee, busy actors who took the family around Britain as they performed in London and other cities. Her father managed theaters in Edinburgh and Bath. He constantly quarreled and litigated with his business associates, but James Boswell found him “a good, agreeable, honest man” (London

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1708 words

Citation: Rogers, Katharine. "Harriet Lee". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 January 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2669, accessed 26 November 2024.]