Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger (baptised on 15 June 1775 at West Camel

West Camel

West Camel is a village and civil parish in south Somerset, England, about north of the town of Yeovil. Situated either side of the River Cam it lies just south of the A303 and has a population of 490...

, Somerset, died on 9 January 1827 in London) was an English biographer, novelist and poet.

Background

Elizabeth was the only child of John Benger or Benjey and his wife Mary, née Long. Her father was a tradesman in Wells

Wells

Wells is a cathedral city and civil parish in the Mendip district of Somerset, England, on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills. Although the population recorded in the 2001 census is 10,406, it has had city status since 1205...

, but he became a Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 purser

Purser

The purser joined the warrant officer ranks of the Royal Navy in the early fourteenth century and existed as a Naval rank until 1852. The development of the warrant officer system began in 1040 when five English ports began furnishing warships to King Edward the Confessor in exchange for certain...

 in 1782 and the family lived mainly in Chatham, Kent until 1797. According to her fellow writer Lucy Aikin

Lucy Aikin

Lucy Aikin , born at Warrington, England into a distinguished literary family of prominent Unitarians, was a historical writer.-Family and education:...

, Elizabeth early showed "an ardour for knowledge, a passion for literature." She was allowed at the age of twelve to attend a local boys' school to learn Latin, and in the following year had a poem published called The Female Geniad.

Hard up after the death of her father in 1796, the family moved to Devizes

Devizes

Devizes is a market town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. The town is about southeast of Chippenham and about east of Trowbridge.Devizes serves as a centre for banks, solicitors and shops, with a large open market place where a market is held once a week...

, Wiltshire and then to London in 1802, where Benger made the acquaintance of several literary figures. These included the novelists Jane

Jane Porter

Jane Porter was a Scottish historical novelist and dramatist.-Life and work:Jane Porter was an avid reader. Said to rise at four in the morning in order to read and write, she read the whole of Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene while still a child...

 and Anna Maria Porter

Anna Maria Porter

Anna Maria Porter , poet, novelist and sister of Jane Porter, was born in the Bailey in Durham, the posthumous child of William Porter , who had served as an army surgeon for 23 years. He is buried in St Oswald's church, Durham....

, and the poet Caroline Champion de Crespigny, a former mistress of Lord Byron. She later became known to John Aikin

John Aikin

John Aikin was an English doctor and writer.-Life:He was born at Kibworth Harcourt, Leicestershire, England, son of Dr. John Aikin, Unitarian divine, and received his elementary education at the Nonconformist academy at Warrington, where his father was a tutor. He studied medicine at the...

 and his daughter Lucy, the poet and children's writer Anna Laetitia Barbauld

Anna Laetitia Barbauld

Anna Laetitia Barbauld was a prominent English poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, and children's author.A "woman of letters" who published in multiple genres, Barbauld had a successful writing career at a time when female professional writers were rare...

, and the novelist and actress Elizabeth Inchbald

Elizabeth Inchbald

Elizabeth Inchbald was an English novelist, actress, and dramatist.- Life :Born on 15 October 1753 at Standingfield, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, Elizabeth was the eighth of the nine children of John Simpson , a farmer, and his wife Mary, née Rushbrook. The family, like several others in the...

. She made a poorer impression on Charles

Charles Lamb

Charles Lamb was an English essayist, best known for his Essays of Elia and for the children's book Tales from Shakespeare, which he produced with his sister, Mary Lamb . Lamb has been referred to by E.V...

 and Mary Lamb

Mary Lamb

Mary Ann Lamb , was an English writer, the sister and collaborator of Charles Lamb.-Biography:She was born on 3 December 1764. In 1796, Mary, who had suffered a breakdown from the strain of caring for her family, killed her mother with a kitchen knife, and from then on had to be kept under constant...

, and on the diarist Henry Crabb Robinson

Henry Crabb Robinson

Henry Crabb Robinson , diarist, was born in Bury St. Edmunds, England.He was articled to an attorney in Colchester. Between 1800 and 1805 he studied at various places in Germany, and became acquainted with nearly all the great men of letters there, including Goethe, Schiller, Johann Gottfried...

, who described her as "ludicrously fidgety" at a party where Wordsworth

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....

 was present.

Writings

Benger wanted to become a playwright, but she had no success and soon turned to poetry with a social message. "The Abolition of the Slave Trade" appeared in 1809 with verse by James Montgomery

James Montgomery

James Montgomery was a British editor, hymnwriter and poet. He was particularly associated with humanitarian causes such as the campaigns to abolish slavery and to end the exploitation of child chimney sweeps....

 and James Grahame

James Grahame

James Grahame was a Scottish poet.He was born in Glasgow, the son of a successful lawyer. After completing his literary course at the University of Glasgow, Grahame went in 1784 to Edinburgh, where he worked as a legal clerk, and was called to the Scottish bar in 1795...

 on the same subject. Then came two novels, the second of which was also translated into French.

She later turned to non-fiction, translating from German and introducing a volume of letters by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock

Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock

Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock was a German poet.-Biography:Klopstock was born at Quedlinburg, the eldest son of a lawyer.Both in his birthplace and on the estate of Friedeburg on the Saale, which his father later rented, young Klopstock passed a happy childhood; and more attention having been given...

, and to writing and compiling competent biographical materials on Elizabeth Hamilton

Elizabeth Hamilton

Elizabeth Hamilton was a British essayist, poet, satirist and novelist. Born in Belfast to Charles Hamilton , a Scottish merchant, and his wife Katherine Mackay , she lived most of her life in Scotland, dying in Harrogate in England after a short illness.Her first literary efforts were directed in...

, John Tobin

John Tobin (dramatist)

John Tobin was a British playwright, who was for most of his life unsuccessful, but in the year of his death made a hit with The Honey Moon...

, Elizabeth of Bohemia

Elizabeth of Bohemia

Elizabeth of Bohemia was the eldest daughter of King James VI and I, King of Scotland, England, Ireland, and Anne of Denmark. As the wife of Frederick V, Elector Palatine, she was Electress Palatine and briefly Queen of Bohemia...

, Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn ;c.1501/1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of Henry VIII of England and Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the...

 and Mary, Queen of Scots between 1818 and 1825. After that, her health began to fail. She was collecting materials for a life of Henry IV of France

Henry IV of France

Henry IV , Henri-Quatre, was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France....

when she died on 9 January 1827.