Elizabeth Singer Rowe
Elizabeth Singer Rowe (1674-1737) was an influential English poet and prose writer recognized for her contributions to literature during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Born into a wealthy merchant family in Ilchester, Somerset, she received a solid education, which enabled her to engage with prominent literary circles. Rowe began her literary career by publishing poems and essays in the Athenian Mercury under pseudonyms, garnering respect and support from notable figures such as Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift. Her first collection, "Poems on Several Occasions," was published in 1696, and her work often reflected personal tragedies, having lost several family members, including her husband, Thomas Rowe, in 1715.
Rowe's writing evolved to include popular prose works such as "Friendship in Death," which resonated with readers and was frequently reprinted. Her intellectual relationships with prominent men of her time, including Isaac Watts, enriched her literary pursuits and studies. After her death in Frome, her literary legacy continued, with her last work published posthumously. Today, Rowe is regarded as one of the most significant female writers of her era, and her work remains a focus of critical study for its impact and popularity.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Elizabeth Singer Rowe
Poet
- Born: September 11, 1674
- Birthplace: Ilcester, Somerset, England
- Died: February 20, 1737
- Place of death: Frome, Somerset, England
Biography
Elizabeth Singer Rowe was born to a wealthy merchant family on September 11, 1674, in Ilchester, Somerset, England. Her parents, Walter and Elizabeth Portnell Singer, were well respected and well liked in their community, held strong religious convictions, and provided Rowe and her two sisters with a good education. The family moved to Frome, Somerset, England, when Rowe was eighteen.
From 1691 to 1695, Rowe submitted poems and essays to the Athenian Mercury under the pseudonyms of Philomela and Pindaric Lady. That journal’s contributors included such notable literary figures as Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift. The group as a whole was supportive of the young female poet, as they were of other intellectual women. Indeed, in 1695, an entire volume of the journal was dedicated to Rowe’s work, written under the Pindaric Lady pen name. Rowe ultimately revealed her true identity to John Dunton, the editor of Athenian Mercury who was instrumental in publishing her first collection of poetry, Poems on Several Occasions, in 1696.
Rowe’s mother had died shortly before the family moved to Frome, and one of her sisters died shortly after the move. In Frome, Rowe formed friendships with the aristocratic Thynne family, who furthered her education in languages. While her correspondence with the Athenian Mercury group in London waned, she began lifelong correspondences with notable intellectuals, such as Benjamin Colman, Matthew Prior, and Isaac Watts. These men recommended appropriate reading for the young woman, and Rowe apparently studied the classics and the work of John Milton and Torquato Tasso. Her work was included in two poetry anthologies, Divine Hymns and Poems on Several Occasions, published in 1704, and A Collection of Divine Hymns and Poems on Several Occasions, published in 1709.
In 1710, she married Thomas Rowe, a nonconformist and scholar; he died on May 13, 1715, after a long and painful struggle with tuberculosis. Rowe’s poem, “On the Death of Thomas Rowe,” is one of her best-known works. She moved back to her father’s home after her husband’s death and remained there after her father died in 1719. By the time of her father’s death, she had experienced the deaths of both of her sisters, her mother, her father, and her husband. These events deeply marked her writing. Indeed, her best-known and most popular volume was her prose work, Friendship in Death, in Twenty Letters from the Dead to the Living: To Which Are Added Thoughts on Death, published in 1728. During the same period, she also published Letters Moral and Entertaining in Prose and Verse. These collections of letters enjoyed great popularity and were reprinted many times.
Rowe died in Frome on February 20, 1737. At her request, Watts, her old friend and intellectual companion, edited and published her last work, Devout Exercises of the Heart in Mediation and Soliloquy, Prayer, and Praise, shortly after her death
Rowe may be the single most important woman writer of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Her work was wildly popular in her day and remains the object of intense critical study.