Gunning, Elizabeth

Elizabeth Gunning (1769–1823) was the daughter of Major John Gunning and Susannah Gunning (née Minifie), who was, like her daughter, a novelist. Elizabeth’s literary career commenced from 1794 onward. Gunning published sixteen works, including eight original novels, four stories for children, and four works of translation, including one play. One of her original novels, The Foresters, dating from 1796, also makes a fictitious claim to be based upon a translation, earning her a special place of interest in the history of translation during the period. Gunning was related to the aristocracy and was ambitious of making a society match herself, but after she became involved in a scandal, Gunning, as her mother before her, was forced to earn a living by her pen. As a writer, Gunning refused to conceal her identity behind either a pseudonym or, after her marriage to Major James Plunkett of Kinnaird, County Roscommon, Ireland in 1803, her husband’s surname. Instead, in a rather clever public relations move, Gunning used her own notoriety to sell her works, using the textual space of her early fiction, such as The Packet: A Novel (1794), to address her slanderers directly.