Elizabeth Lee

Born in 1857 and active in late Victorian and early twentieth-century literary life, Elizabeth Lee was an English teacher, critic, biographer, and translator. She is especially associated with biographical and reference writing, and she contributed a number of entries to the Dictionary of National Biography under the editorship of her brother, Sir Sidney Lee.

Lee also worked as a lecturer and educational writer, and she served for several years as secretary of the English Association. Her interests ranged widely across English literature and foreign writing, and her work as a translator helped introduce continental authors to English-speaking readers.

She died in 1920. Although she is not as widely remembered as some of her contemporaries, her career shows the breadth of literary work open to women scholars of her time: teaching, criticism, translation, editorial work, and biography.