The family was of Welsh origin, and had strong military links: William was in the Russian service, and afterwards paymaster of an English regiment; his brother was General Thomas Roberts, who raised the 111th Regiment of Foot in 1794; and Emma's brother became a lieutenant in the army, but died young.
[5] This links Roberts to several notable writers such as Caroline Ponsonby, later Lady Caroline Lamb; Anna Maria Fielding, who published as Mrs. S. C. Hall; and Rosina Doyle Wheeler, who married Edward Bulwer-Lytton and published her many novels as Rosina Bulwer Lytton.
[6] At the Hans Place boarding school, Roberts was a roommate of Letitia Elizabeth (Landon) Maclean, the poet "L. E. L."[7] of whom she wrote a memoir.
Roberts's literary career began with the publication of Memoirs of the Rival Houses of York and Lancaster ... in 1827.
Although many works of this era are notably dated, a current assessment is that "[h]er compassion for the people of India, her prodigious memory, and her straightforward style make Roberts rather accessible to the twenty-first century reader".
[8] But by 1839 she decided to return to India, not simply by sailing directly, but by crossing overland from France, through Egypt to Suez, and then by ship to Bombay.