Elizabeth B. Lester

EBL was an early-nineteenth-century didactic novelist whose favourite topic is the question of whether it is better to marry or stay single. Most of her fiction considers this and comparable issues of domestic morality, but even within this sphere her characters include both the unconventional and the disreputable. Two characters stand out as boldly portrayed eccentrics or outcasts drawn with great, if melodramatic, power: a female hermit and virago and a male Jew. EBL was probably an Anglican of Evangelical outlook and Quaker sympathies; the social class of her characters rises over the course of her career. As well as novels, she published two novellas and a book of short stories, with a long religious-political essay which may or may not be by her.