Harriet Lee

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Harriet Lee (1757, London - August 1, 1851 Clifton, England) was a writer.

Born the daughter of actor John Lee she grew up in an artistic family. In 1786, she published a novel written in letters titled The Errors of Innocence. In 1797 she completed her novel, Clara Lennox and that same year, she put out the first volume of her collection of twelve stories called the Canterbury Tales that she completed in 1805. Her sister, Sophia Lee (1750–1824), was also a successful author and dramatist who provided contributed two episodes for the first volume in the lengthy project. One episode titled Kruitzner, was dramatized by Lord Byron in 1821, under the title of Werner, or the Inheritance. Harriet Lee then wrote it as a play titled The Three Strangers that debuted at London's Covent Garden in 1825.

After the death of his wife Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin began pursuing Harriet for marriage but the quite proper and religious 41-year-old Lee rejected his proposal based on their different philosophies and religion. She and her sisters ran a school opened a school at Belvedere House in the city of Bath where they became friends with novelist Ann Radcliffe. The two spent their final years in the village of Clifton in Bristol.

Harriet Lee lived to be 94, dying at Clifton in 1851 where she is interred in the Church cemetery with her sisters.