The New International Encyclopædia/Knight, Ellis Cornelia

KNIGHT, Ellis Cornelia (1757-1837). An English author, daughter of Rear-Admiral Sir Joseph Knight. At his death (1775) his widow and child went to live in Italy, and when her mother also died, Cornelia returned to England in charge of her friends, Lady Hamilton and Admiral Nelson (1799). She was companion to Queen Charlotte (1805-13), afterwards to the Princess of Wales, and her autobiography, not written to gratify the craving for details of Court life, is valuable on account of its reliable narration of facts. It was edited and published posthumously (1861), and her other books, are: Dinarbas (1790); two heavy romances, Marcus Flaminius (1792) and Sir Guy de Lusignan ( 1833); her chief work, A Description of Latium or La Campagna di Roma (1805); besides a volume of prayer and hymns from the German (1832). The last twenty years of her life were spent abroad, and she died in Paris.