INCHBALD, ELIZABETH (1753-1821), English novel ist, playwright and actress, was born on Oct. 15, 1753, the daugh ter of a farmer, Joseph Simpson. She left home in April 1772 to seek her fortune on the London stage; two months later she married Joseph Inchbald, an actor, and in September made her début at Bristol as Cordelia to his Lear. In the next seven years she played with him in the provinces, taking important leading parts. Elizabeth Inchbald had great beauty, but was debarred from rising to the top of her profession by an impediment in her speech. After her husband's death she continued to appear on the stage until 1789, producing at the same time many adaptations of plays, and writing some farces of her own. Among her most successful adaptations were Wives as They Were and Maids as They Are (1797). But her fame rests on the two novels: A Simple Story (1791) and Nature and Art (1796), which have become standard works and cannot be neglected by any student of the i8th cen tury novel.
See J. Boaden, Memoirs of Mrs. Inchbald (2 vols., 1833) ; Fanny Kemble, Records of a Girlhood (1878) ; W. Bell Scott, preface to A Simple Story (188o) ; S. R. Littlewood, Elizabeth Inchbald and her Circle 1753-1821 (1921) .