Eliza Haywood

She was born in London. She married the Rev. Valentine Haywood in 1710, but their marriage was short-lived, and she took to the stage, appearing in Dublin about 1715. She afterwards settled in London, and produced numerous plays and novels, into which she introduced scandalous episodes regarding living persons whose identity was very thinly veiled. This activity, along with her political satires, more than once got her into trouble, and
together with attacks upon Alexander Pope, made in concert with Curll the bookseller, procured for her a place in The Dunciad. Her enemies called her reputation into question, but nothing very serious appears to have been proved. She is repeatedly referred to by Richard Steele, and has been doubtfully identified with his "Sappho". Some of her works, such as her enormously successful first novel Love in Excess; Or, The Fatal Enquiry (1719-20), The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (1751), and The History of Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy (1753), achieved great popularity. Others include The Fair Captive (1721), Idalia (1723), Memoirs of a Certain Island adjacent to Utopia (anonymously) (1725), Secret History of Present Intrigues at the Court of Caramania (anonymously) (1727). She also published a well-received periodical entitled The Female Spectator (1744-46),
and other works.