A collection of original Amelia Alderson Opie manuscripts and correspondence with additional family related material, including manuscripts, correspondence, and ephemera. The Amelia Alderson Opie material includes two manuscript travel journals, poems, songs, and letters to and from various family members.

Amelia Alderson Opie (1769-1853) was a British Romantic poet and author. She was born in Norwich, England, to physician James Alderson and Amelia Briggs; Opie's mother died when she was 15. Opie anonymously published her first novel, The dangers of coquetry, in 1790 at the age of 20; she went on to publish six more novels, the most famous of which is Adeline Mowbry (1804), as well as volumes of tales and poems. She married the painter John Opie (1761-1807) in 1798 and through him met several artists and actors, including Sarah Siddons. Opie was a lifelong activist and abolitionist and when she joined the Society of Friends in 1825, she vowed to give up writing novels and plays. She dedicated the last decades of her life to abolitionist work and to asylum and prison reform; she died in Norwich in 1853.

3.16 Linear Feet (2 boxes, 1 folder)

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