Elizabeth Hervey (1748–1820) was the author of seven novels, six of which were published and one of which exists "in a carefully-bound manuscript."
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Life
Elizabeth March was the daughter of Maria Hamilton (7 January 1725 – 22 July 1798), daughter of George Hamilton (MP for Wells) and granddaughter of the sixth earl of Abercorn, and Francis March, a "Jamaican planter and City man." After the death of her father, her mother married wealthy planter, slave-owner and politician William Beckford. While still in her teens, March married Alexander Harvie, a business associate of her stepfather's who died in 1765 and left her a widow at the age of seventeen. Her second marriage was also brief: in 1774 she married Col William Thomas Hervey and had two sons before Hervey either died or the marriage ended in 1778, while the family was living abroad due to debt. In 1789, Hervey was reported to have been living in Brussels and having an affair with poet and radical Robert Merry, with whom she apparently maintained a friendly relationship after they parted. Merry was a leading force in the Della Cruscan literary movement who came in for considerable criticism for their literary mannerisms.