Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Simple Story
As an authentic memoir of Mrs. Inchbald, composed from documents in her own hand-writing, is shortly to be published, we shall confine ourselves, on the present occasion, of the admission of her Tales in "The Standard Novels," to a detail of the leading facts of her life which have never yet been given with even tolerable accuracy.
Elizabeth Inchbald was the last child but one of the numerous family of John and Mary Simpson, of Standingfield, in Suffolk, and born on the 15th of October, 1753. Her father died when she was but eight years old, and her mother was left to struggle, deeply encumbered, with the concerns of a farm which we believe was the sole source of profit, and indeed maintenance, to the family.
Mrs. Inchbald has told us that she never was sent to school, and never had any governess or preceptor. In that particular she resembled Miss Burney, another writer of novels, and her equal in the delineation of character and passion. But the latter lady lived at least in the atmosphere of letters, and her father was a man of science and refinement.
The family of the Simpsons was Catholic; and the neighbourhood abounded in respectable persons of that communion, who willingly extended their friendship to the interesting farm-house at Standingfield, where the daughters were spoken of as amiable and handsome girls; Elizabeth particularly admired, though she has candidly admit ted that her sister Deborah was handsomer than herself. Elizabeth had a defect to surmount which caused her infinite vexation - she, from her infancy, stammered; and yet the early passion of her mind was to be an actress.
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