Amelia Opie managed to earn an income from her writing following the death of her husband, the artist John Opie, when she was 38. Her novel Adeline Mowbry is based on the life of Mary Wollstonecraft, despite the fact that Opie did not countenance Wollstonecraft's rejection of marriage. The two met briefly in the last years of Wollstonecraft's life. Opie, a Quaker convert, was involved with charitable works and worked with fellow Quaker Elizabeth Fry on prison reform. She advocated the abolition of slavery and was a delegate to the 1840 Anti-Slavery Convention. Her poem The Negro Boy’s Tale, also in the collection, is an uncompromising condemnation of slavery.
Citation:
Opie, Amelia, Adeline Mowbray, or The Mother and Daughter, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme, Paternoster Row, 1805, Lisa Unger Baskin Collection, Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Accessed March 20, 2023, https://exhibits.library.duke.edu/exhibits/show/baskin/item/4227
