Eleanor Sleath (15 October 1770,

Loughborough Loughborough ( ) is a market town in the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England, the seat of Charnwood Borough Council and Loughborough University. At the 2011 census the town's built-up area had a population of 59,932 , the second lar ...

– 5 May 1847, Sileby)Eleanor Sleath
at the Orlando Project, Cambridge University Press was an English novelist, best known for her 1798

gothic novel Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of ea ...

, '' The Orphan of the Rhine'', which was listed as one of the seven "horrid novels" by Jane Austen in her novel ''

Northanger Abbey ''Northanger Abbey'' () is a coming-of-age novel and a satire of Gothic novels written by Jane Austen. Austen was also influenced by Charlotte Lennox's '' The Female Quixote'' (1752). ''Northanger Abbey'' was completed in 1803, the first ...

''.

Publications

*'' The Orphan of the Rhine'', 1798 *''Who's the Murderer?'', 1802 *''The Bristol Heiress; or the Errors of Education'', 1809 *''The Nocturnal Minstrel; or the Spirit of the Woods'', 1810 *''Pyrenean Banditti'', 1811 *''Glenowen; or The Fairy Palace;'' 1812

Biography

For a long time, little was known of Sleath's life. She is mentioned in the ''Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors'', published in 1816, accompanied by a list of her works.

Michael Sadleir Michael Sadleir (25 December 1888 – 13 December 1957), born Michael Thomas Harvey Sadler, was a British publisher, novelist, book collector, and bibliographer. Biography Michael Sadleir was born in Oxford, England, the son of Sir Michael ...

had speculated about her religion, and Devendra Varma posited that she might be the widow of a surgeon. In 2012, Rebecca Czlapinski and Eric C. Wheeler published 'The Real Eleanor Sleath' in ''Studies in Gothic Fiction.'' They established that Eleanor Carter was born to Thomas and Elizabeth Carter. She was the youngest of their five children. She married Joseph Barnabus Sleath, a surgeon and apothecary, in September 1792 and moved to Nuneaton. Eleanor gave birth to a son also named Joseph Barnabus soon after her marriage, but in 1794 this son died. Four weeks later, Eleanor's husband died, leaving her in significant debt. In November 1794, she returned to her family home in Leicester to care for her elderly mother. During the time between Sleath's return to Leicester and the publication of her first novel, little is known about her life. She appears to have associated with

Susanna Watts Susanna Watts (1768–1842) was a noted English abolitionist, author, translator and artist. Biography Watts was born in 1768, in Danet's Hall, Leicester, the youngest of three sisters and the only child of John and Joan Watts to survive childho ...

and other literary-minded neighbours. Sleath moved to a more rural home with her family in 1801. In 1807, Ann Dudley became suspicious that Sleath was too close with her husband, the Reverend John Dudley, after Sleath's sister-in-law Elizabeth made a sarcastic comment. After controversy, gossip, and legal threats, the Dudley's moved away from the area (and later separated in 1811), and Sleath had a period of productivity during which she wrote several books. In 1813, Sleath's brother and mother died, and she moved to

. Ann Dudley died in 1823, and John Dudley and Sleath married on 1 April 1823 and settled in Sileby. Eleanor died of liver disease on 5 May 1847.

References

1770 births 1847 deaths 18th-century British women writers 19th-century English women writers 18th-century English novelists 19th-century English novelists English horror writers English women novelists Writers of Gothic fiction Women horror writers People from Loughborough 18th-century English women 18th-century English people {{England-writer-stub