Elizabeth Carter

Elizabeth Carter 1717-1806, English poet and translator. Under the pen name Eliza she contributed for years to the Gentleman's Magazine. One of the group of 18th-century women known as the bluestockings, she was a friend of Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, and Horace Walpole. Collections of her poems appeared in 1738 and 1762. Her translations of Epictetus were published in 1758.

Bibliography: See her memoirs (1807); study by A. C. C. Gaussen (1906); Bluestocking Letters (ed. by R. B. Johnson, 1926).

Carter, Mrs Elizabeth (1717–1806), scholar and poet, a noted member of the Blue Stocking Circle; she learned Latin, Greek, and Hebrew in childhood. Dr Johnson thought her one of the best Greek scholars he had known. In 1738 she published her early poems, and Johnson, as a high honour, invited her to contribute to The Rambler. Her translation of Epictetus (1758) gained her a European reputation.