Sophia Briscoe


Sophia Briscoe was the 18th-century English author of two epistolary novels. Little is known of her life.

Novels

Briscoe was the author of the epistolary novels Miss Melmoth; or the New Clarissa and The Fine Lady: A Novel. Briscoe was paid 20 guineas for the copyright of The Fine Lady. A German translation of The Fine Lady appeared as Die Frau nach der Mode in Leipzig, dated 1771.
Both novels are available in print-on-demand editions. Miss Melmoth was well received in The Critical Review. The Monthly Review mildly commended it. The treatment of incest in Miss Melmoth has been discussed along with other aspects by at least one modern critic.

Attribution

It has been speculated that The Sylph, a novel published in 1778 and attributed to Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, was written by Briscoe. A receipt at the British Library suggests the publisher T. Lowndes paid Briscoe £12 for it, but it is thought likelier on stylistic grounds that Briscoe simply served as an intermediary, so that the Duchess could retain her anonymity. The novel has its champions to this day.

Letter to Pitt?

Little further is known of Sophia Briscoe. It is not possible to say whether the person who wrote from Leyton, Essex, to William Pitt the Younger on 14 December 1797, on the subject of taxation, was the novelist or a namesake.