“ INCHBALD, MRS ELIZABETH (1753–1821) , English novelist, playwright and actress, was born on the 15th of October 1753 at Standingfield, Suffolk, the daughter of John Simpson, a farmer. Her father died when she was eight years old. She and her sisters never enjoyed the advantages of school or of any regular supervision in their studies, but they seem to have acquired refined and literary tastes at an early age. Ambitious to become an actress, a career for which an impediment in her speech hardly seemed to qualify her, she applied in vain for an engagement ”

“ After the death of her husband she continued for some time on the stage; making her first London appearance at Covent Garden as Bellario in Philaster on the 3rd of October 1780. Her success, however, as an author led her to retire in 1789. ”