Biography

She was born in Norwich to Elizabeth Lawrence and Daniel Bentley. The latter, a journeyman

Journeyman

A journeyman is someone who completed an apprenticeship and was fully educated in a trade or craft, but not yet a master. To become a master, a journeyman had to submit a master work piece to a guild for evaluation and be admitted to the guild as a master....

 cordwainer

Cordwainer

A cordwainer is a shoemaker/cobbler who makes fine soft leather shoes and other luxury footwear articles. The word is derived from "cordwain", or "cordovan", the leather produced in Córdoba, Spain. The term cordwainer was used as early as 1100 in England...

 who had himself received a good education, educated Elizabeth, his only child. The family faced financial difficulties after he had a stroke in 1777 and was unable to work at his usual trade. He died in 1783, when his daughter was sixteen.

Two years later, Bentley reported a new-found desire to write poetry "which [she] had no thought or desire of being seen." Her first collection, Genuine Poetical Compositions (1791), had an impressive 1,935 subscribers, including literary notables Elizabeth Carter

Elizabeth Carter

Elizabeth Carter was an English poet, classicist, writer and translator, and a member of the Bluestocking Circle.-Biography:...

, Elizabeth Montagu

Elizabeth Montagu

Elizabeth Montagu was a British social reformer, patron of the arts, salonist, literary critic, and writer who helped organize and lead the bluestocking society...

, William Cowper

William Cowper

William Cowper was an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. In many ways, he was one of the forerunners of Romantic poetry...

, and Hester Chapone

Hester Chapone

Hester Chapone , writer of conduct books for women, was born on 27 October 1727 at Twywell, Northamptonshire,The daughter of Thomas Mulso , a gentleman farmer, and his wife , a daughter of Colonel Thomas, Hester wrote a romance at the age of nine, 'The Loves of Amoret and Melissa', which earned...

. As a labouring-class poet, Bentley—"content to be the last and lowest of the tuneful train"—adopted a humble stance towards her readers and let it be known that the venture was intended to establish an annuity for she and her mother. Both her collections, however, contained portraits of the author and accounts of her life; the account written in 1790 and published in the first volume is the source of most that is known of her. Her poetry celebrates the countryside and engages in public debates on topics such as abolitionism

Abolitionism

Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...

 and cruelty to animals

Animal welfare

Animal welfare is the physical and psychological well-being of animals.The term animal welfare can also mean human concern for animal welfare or a position in a debate on animal ethics and animal rights...

. Cowper compared her favourably with Mary Leapor

Mary Leapor

Mary Leapor was an English poet, born in Marston St. Lawrence, Northamptonshire, the only child of Anne Sharman and Philip Leapor , a gardener...

, a labouring-class poet of the previous generation, citing her "strong natural genius."

After the publication of her first volume, Bentley kept a small boarding school and did not publish much—some poems for children; an ode on the Battle of Trafalgar

Battle of Trafalgar

The Battle of Trafalgar was a sea battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French Navy and Spanish Navy, during the War of the Third Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars ....

 (1805)—for three decades. This hiatus ended with the publication of her Poems in 1821.

She died nine years later in an almshouse.

Works

• Genuine Poetical Compositions, on Various Subjects (Norwich, by subscription, 1791) (Etext, British Women Romantic Poets Project)
• Tales for Children in Verse
• Poems; being the Genuine Compositions of Elizabeth Bentley (by subscription, 1821)

Resources

• Blain, Virginia, et al., eds. "Bentley, Elizabeth." The Feminist Companion to Literature in English. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1990. 85.
• Landry, Donna. “Bentley, Elizabeth (bap. 1767, d. 1839).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. 12 April 2007.