Eliza Rennie or Mrs Eliza Walker was a minor Scottish-born romantic and gothic short story author most notable for writing about her friendship with Mary Shelley and her contemporaries, including meetings with such celebrities as the Duke of Wellington.
14 Facts About Eliza Rennie
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Eliza Rennie published a two-volume autobiographical work of literary gossip entitled Traits of Character: being Twenty-Five Years' Literary and Personal Recollections, by a Contemporary.
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One possible matching birth record between 1805 and 1820 has been found of an Elizabeth Rennie born on 17 May 1813 to Alexander Rennie and Jean Taylor in the village of Udny, Aberdeenshire.
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Eliza Rennie's father was therefore almost certainly Alexander Home Stirling Rennie, born on 13 June 1797 in Kilsyth, Scotland, a physician who studied medicine at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and upon qualification moved to London between about 1818 and 1820.
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Eliza Rennie was very unhappy, felt betrayed, and apparently moved to London to join her father, possibly following the death of her grandfather in 1824.
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Eliza Rennie spent the rest of her life in London and the home counties, never losing her Scottish identity.
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Eliza Rennie's first definite published work was Poems, released when she was a teenager, possibly as young as thirteen or fourteen.
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Mary Shelley 8.
Eliza Rennie was a regular churchgoer and interested in Spiritualism.
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Eliza Rennie's father married in 1829, and the household moved to the country in 1834.
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Eliza Rennie's father died in 1838 in a fall from a horse, leaving a widow and at least two young children.
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Eliza Rennie herself claimed in applications for financial assistance that the marriage was bigamous, and that her fortune was embezzled by "her brother".
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Eliza Rennie describes a life in London and Scottish society with excursions to spa towns and meetings with celebrities and her publishers.
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Eliza Rennie produced a steady string of short stories for the periodicals of the day, and writes about receiving a small legacy, possibly from her father's estate or from one of her wealthy admirers.
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Eliza Rennie writes about her inordinate fondness for her pet terrier, which was dognapped on two occasions for ransom.