Elizabeth Ryves

Who was Elizabeth Ryves?

Elizabeth "Eliza" Ryves was an Irish author, poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and translator.

Eliza Ryves came from an old wealthy Irish family connected with Bruno Ryves. Her father was a long-serving Irish army officer. She was left with nothing of her father's inheritance after being swindled out of it ‘by the chicanery of the law’. Poverty stricken, Eliza traveled to London in 1775 to petition the government about her inheritance as well as to try and make a living as a writer. Ryves wrote in an assortment of genres including plays, verses, poetry, political articles for newspapers, and a novel entitled The Hermit of Snowden, which is thought to be a story of her own anguish. Eliza commonly worked writing for magazines unpaid. The poetry of her later years manifested itself as politically Whig and was directed toward public figures.

In addition to being an author, Eliza learned French in order to translate several works into English including The Social Contract, Raynal's Letter to the National Assembly, and Review of the Constitutions of the Principal States of Europe by Jean-François Delacroix.