Eliza Leslie [frequently referred to as Miss Leslie] was an American author of popular cookbooks during the nineteenth century. She gained popularity for her books on etiquette as well. Her father, a watchmaker of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was a personal friend of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and others. Eliza was born in Philadelphia and accompanied her parents to England in 1793. After her return to the United States in 1800, she resided chiefly in Philadelphia. Her first compositions were in verse. In her fortieth year she published her first prose work, a cookery-book, which... met with a large sale. Later, after obtaining a prize for her story “Mrs. Washington Potts,” which was published in Godey's Ladies' Book, she adopted literature as a profession. She was the sister of the English artist Charles Robert Leslie and United States Army soldier Thomas Jefferson Leslie. For a time, she edited an annual gift book called The Gift, which included contributions from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Parker Willis, Elizabeth F. Ellet, Lydia Sigourney, Charles Fenno Hoffman, and others.
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