Dorothy Wordsworth to William Wordsworth, 23 April 1812: 'We have not yet been sufficiently settled to read any thing but Novels. Adeline Mowbray made us quite sick before we got to the end of it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Wordsworth Family Print: Book
'And Holcroft, reading Adelaide, which must have been one of her earliest plays, wrote on the back of the manuscript: at seventeen, when scenes like this occurred, you promis?d much. Remember! Keep your word. T. H.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Holcroft Manuscript: Play script
?Mrs Opie?s was essentially a happy temperament and with such adaptability as she possessed, quiet home evenings were not without their charms; even when her husband sat there deep in his books or prints. He liked novels also: had the ? virtue of appreciating her own: when she read her latest work to him in the dramatic manner that made Martineaus weep over her pathos in manuscript and wonder at the lesser charm of the printed page, if her audience was so much smaller than at Norwich literary gatherings, it was an indulgent one.?
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Amelia Opie Manuscript: Unknown
?As usual all the good I saw in my work, before it was printed, is now vanished from my sight and I remember only its faults. All the authors of both sexes, and artists too, that are not too ignorant or full of conceit to be capable of alarm tell me they have had the same feeling when about to receive judgement from the public. Besides, whatever I read appears to me so superior to my own productions, that I am in a state of most unenviable humility.?
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Amelia Opie Print: Book
'I have been reading for the first time 2 of yr Tales & am delighted with them. They not only amuse & interest & affect extremely but they amend--and it must be a delightful reflection for a Person who has written for others to feel that they have done good instead of harm.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Caroline Lamb Print: Book
'I [Harriet Martineau] remember my mother and sister coming home with swollen eyes and tender spirits after spending an evening with Miss Opie, to hear "Temper," which she read in a most overpowering way. When they saw it in print, they could scarcely believe it was the same story.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Amelia Opie Manuscript: Unknown
'I [Harriet Martineau] remember my mother and sister coming home with swollen eyes and tender spirits after spending an evening with Miss Opie, to hear "Temper," which she read in a most overpowering way. When they saw it in print, they could scarcely believe it was the same story.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Martineau and daughter Print: Book
'Tis thy will and I must leave thee, oh! Thou best beloved farewell/...'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Molineux group, including Mrs Molineux
'The Mourner' 'The following [erased] pensive lines will accord with the sympathies of the feeling heart: the parent sinks under the loss of a beloved husband and is after times inconsolable.' 'Hence! Cruel Life!/...' 'Mrs Opie'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Molineux group, including Mrs Molineux
'In my sixth year [...] Nothing could contribute so much to my amusement as a novel. A
novel at six years may appear ridiculous, but it was a real desire that I felt, -- not to instruct
myself, I felt no such wish, but to divert myself and to afford more scope to my nightly
meditations ... and it is worthy to remark that in a novel I carefully past over all passages
which described CHILDREN --
'The Fops love and pursuit of the heroines mother in "Temper" delighted me, but the
description of the infancy of Emma was past over'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'I went to Norwich & past two Days with Mrs Opie who has written some pleasant books, particularly the [italics] Father & Daughter [end italics].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Crabbe Print: Book
'In [1802] [...] [Amelia Opie] published a volume of poems. It included those charming and
well-known lines, which, as giving the key to her nature -- tenderness -- we shall quote here
[reproduces two stanzas opening "Go, youth beloved, in distant glades"] [...] It was of this
very sweet song that Sir James Mackintosh playfully wrote to Mr. Sharpe, saying: "Tell the
fair Opie that if she would address such pretty verses to me as she did to Ashburner, I think
she might almost bring me back from Bombay, though she could not prevent his going
thither."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Mackintosh Print: Book
On literary life of Amelia Opie, 1804-25:
'It must have been something [...] to breakfast with Wordsworth and Sir Walter Scott: the gifted
man condescending to tell her "that he had cried more over her 'Father and Daughter' than he
cried over such things."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book