Autobiography of Miss Cornelia Knight
Lady Companion to the Princess Charlotte of Wales

This two-volume Autobiography by Cornelia Knight (1757–1837), Lady Companion to the Princess Charlotte of Wales, was published in 1861.

Ellis Cornelia Knight (Author), John William Kaye (Edited by)

9781108044868, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 February 2012

364 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2.1 cm, 0.46 kg

This two-volume Autobiography by Cornelia Knight (1757–1837) was published in 1861. It was complied by the military historian Sir John Kaye from her journals and a memoir based on them, written late in life and remaining incomplete at her death. Cornelia Knight, the daughter of an admiral, was highly educated: she knew ten languages, was skilled at painting and drawing, and published novels and poetry. In 1813 she was appointed to the household of Princess Charlotte of Wales. In 1814, the Prince Regent dismissed all his daughter's attendants, and Knight returned to a life of literature and European travel. In Volume 2, Knight continues her account of her dismissal, and a later meeting with the Princess, now happily married (though she was shortly to die in childbirth). Knight spent another twenty years in the court circles of Europe: an appendix gives further extracts from her journals and her 'anecdote book'.

1. Miss Knight's narrative of events attending the rupture of the Orange marriage
2. The Princess's birthday
3. Preparations for war
4. Rejoicings for Waterloo
5. France revisited
6. Return to England
7. Society in Paris
8. Departure from Louisburg
9. Paris and London
10. Genoa
11. Anecdotes
Extracts from Miss Knight's journals: Rome and Naples, 1781–98
Windsor, 1805–12
Extracts from Miss Knight's anecdote books
Appendix.

Subject Areas: British & Irish history [HBJD1]