Emma Roberts

Emma Roberts (27 March 1791 – 17 September 1840), often referred to as "Miss Emma Roberts", was an English travel writer and poet known for her memoirs about India. In her own time, she was well regarded, and William Jerdan considered her "a very successful cultivator of the belles lettres".

Early life

Emma Roberts was born on 27 March 1791, either in London or (according to other sources) in Methley, near Leeds. She was one of three children of Captain William Roberts and his wife, Eliza. The family was of Welsh origin, and had strong military links: William was in the Russian service, and afterwards paymaster of an English regiment; his brother was General Thomas Roberts, who raised the 111th Regiment of Foot in 1794; and Emma's brother became a lieutenant in the army, but died young.

After her father died, her mother took Emma and her elder sister to Bath. Her mother is said to have "some literary pretensions".

Emma received some of her education from Frances Arabella Rowden, an engaging teacher with a particular enthusiasm for the theatre. Mary Russell Mitford describes her as not only a poet, but with "a knack of making poetesses of her pupils". This links Roberts to several notable writers such as Caroline Ponsonby, later Lady Caroline Lamb; Anna Maria Fielding, who published as Mrs. S. C. Hall; and Rosina Doyle Wheeler, who married Edward Bulwer-Lytton and published her many novels as Rosina Bulwer Lytton. At the Hans Place boarding school, Roberts was a roommate of Letitia Elizabeth (Landon) Maclean, the poet "L. E. L." of whom she wrote a memoir.