[1] After a moderately successful stage career in Great Britain and Ireland, she emigrated to the United States of America in 1793 and became one of the best-known actresses of the late 18th/early 19th century.

[2] She first came to the attention of the British public in the late 18th century, as "Mrs Courtney Melmoth" part of an acting duo with her common-law husband, clergyman-turned actor Samuel Jackson Pratt.

[12] He then asked for a further loan four days later[13] and, on 3 March begged Franklin for "a small allowance by week or month, in order to assist my slender Circumstances".

Later that year, also at Covent Garden, she played Roxana in Nathaniel Lee's The Rival Queens or The Death of Alexander The Great, a role she would reprise at other times in her career.

[2][17] In November 1776 she made her debut at Drury Lane[2][3][8] as Lady Macbeth and the following February, reprised her role as Roxanne in The Rival Queens, alongside Mary Robinson.

[18] This would be her last appearance in London; the following year she and her husband were in Paris,[9] then in 1778 and 1779 they played two seasons in Edinburgh, where Melmoth began to add Comic parts (including Lady Sneerwell in The School for Scandal) to her previously tragic repertoire.

In late 1779, after a season in Birmingham, Melmoth's success seems to have faded for a while, and the couple travelled Britain seeking work, occasionally telling fortunes for a living.

Melmoth toured the major cities of Ireland, playing in Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Derry and Belfast, eventually settling in Dublin.

[2][3][6][8] Arriving in New York in March 1793, Melmoth (advertised as 'From the Theatres Royal of London and Dublin') gave a series of recitations and Shakespearian monologues, held at Corre's Hotel throughout that April.

[3] Later that year she joined Hodgkinson's 'American Company' at the John Street Theatre, New York, making her debut on 20 November 1793[8] as Euphrasia in Arthur Murphy's The Grecian Daughter.

[2] Unfortunately, Melmoth, still playing youthful parts in her late-40s, was no longer in the prime of life, and her figure had grown bulky:[8][17] "far beyond the sphere of embonpoint" as Dunlap commented.

[3] Later she purchased a cottage in Red Hook Lane, Brooklyn (on present-day Carroll Street) where she established a boarding house and a school[4][8] which she ran until her death.

[21] She died, aged 74, on 28 September 1823 and was buried in the Catholic graveyard surrounding the original St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mott and Prince streets in Manhattan.