1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lee, Sophia

LEE, SOPHIA (1750–1824), English novelist and dramatist, daughter of John Lee (d. 1781), actor and theatrical manager, was born in London. Her first piece, The Chapter of Accidents, a one-act-opera based on Diderot’s Père de famille, was produced by George Colman at the Haymarket Theatre on the 5th of August 1780. The proceeds were spent in establishing a school at Bath, where Miss Lee made a home for her sisters. Her subsequent productions included The Recess, or a Tale of other Times (1785), a historical romance; and Almeyda, Queen of Grenada (1796), a tragedy in blank verse; she also contributed to her sister’s Canterbury Tales (1797). She died at her house near Clifton on the 13th of March 1824.

Her sister, Harriet Lee (1757–1851), published in 1786 a novel written in letters, The Errors of Innocence. Clara Lennox followed in 1797. Her chief work is the Canterbury Tales (1797–1805), a series of twelve stories which became very popular. Lord Byron dramatized one of the tales, “Kruitzner,” as Werner, or the Inheritance. She died at Clifton on the 1st of August 1851.