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At the Circulating Library

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

Author: Elizabeth Thornton

Author: Elizabeth Thornton (1787–1863)

Alternate Name(s): Parry (maiden name); El-Ton (pseudonym)

Biography: Elizabeth Thornton was born on 12 July 1787 in Little Dunham, Norfolk, the daughter of Edward Parry and his wife Emila (née Vansittart) and the niece of Lord Bexley. She married John Leslie-Melville Thornton (1783–1861), the son of Samuel Thornton (1755–1838) who served as M.P. and director of the Bank of England. Her husband served as the commissioner of the boards of audit, stamps, and inland revenue. The couple had six sons and four daughters. Relatively late in life, Thornton wrote a narrative poem Lady Alice: A Ballad Romance (1842) and a novel The Marchioness (1842). Her second novel, Truth and Falsehood (1847), was serialized in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine until August 1846 when it was suddently replaced by Gore's Temptation and Atonement. Tait's issued an apology in April 1847. Thereafter, Thornton stopped writing. Her husband died in 1861 and she died on 16 July 1863 in Clapham.

References: British Census (1851, 1861); DNB (Samuel Thornton)

Fiction Titles:

  1. The Marchioness: A Strange but True Tale.  2 vol.  London: Simpkin, 1842.
  2. Truth and Falsehood: A Romance.  3 vol.  London: Chapman and Hall, 1847.