Chawton House Library: Women's Novels
Sketches of Irish Character: by Mrs S C Hall
1st Edition
By Marion Durnin
August 03, 2016
Born in Dublin into the Anglo-Irish gentry, Anna Maria Hall moved to London when she was fifteen where she became famous for her books, plays and travel writing. It was her book, Sketches of Irish Character (1829) which made her a household name. This modern critical edition is based on Hall's ...
Strathallan: by Alicia LeFanu
1st Edition
By Anna M Fitzer
August 03, 2016
A novel, which addresses central themes of adultery, obsession and inheritance. It follows the fortunes of Matilda Melbourne who displays virtue, delicacy and an unwavering commitment to the sometimes ruthless demands of parental authority....
The Citizen: by Ann Gomersall
1st Edition
By Margaret S Yoon
August 03, 2016
Ann Gomersall’s The Citizen (1790) is an epistolary novel, written over two volumes. Gomersall came out of the merchant class in Leeds and little else is known about her, but she began writing to raise funds for her merchant husband to re-enter business after he lost his money. This is the first ...
The Corinna of England, or a Heroine in the Shade; A Modern Romance: by E M Foster
1st Edition
By Sylvia Bordoni
August 03, 2016
A novel that helps you understand the British reaction to Corinne as well as of its cultural, social and gender implications....
The Histories of Some of the Penitents in the Magdalen House
1st Edition
Edited
By Jennie Batchelor, Megan Hiatt
August 03, 2016
First published in 1759, this novel aims to promote the cause of the Magdalen House, a charity which sought to rehabilitate prostitutes by fitting them for a life of virtuous industry. It challenges long-standing prejudices against prostitutes by presenting them as victims of inadequate education, ...
The History of Lady Julia Mandeville: by Frances Brooke
1st Edition
By Enit Karafili Steiner
August 03, 2016
Published in 1763, The History of Lady Julia Mandeville was Frances Brooke’s first and most successful novel. This modern critical edition contains an introductory essay on the text, endnotes and textual variants as well as appendices containing contemporary reviews and some of Brooke’s other ...
The History of Ned Evans: by Elizabeth Hervey
1st Edition
By Helena Kelly
August 03, 2016
Ned Evans is a rags-to-riches hero, whose early existence in poverty in Wales is dramatically changed when he saves the beautiful Lady Cecilia Rivers from an assault and is invited to Ireland by her father. After spending time with the great and the good of Irish society, Ned travels to America ...
The Invisible Spy: by Eliza Haywood
1st Edition
By Carol Stewart
August 03, 2016
Interest in the work of Eliza Haywood has increased greatly over the last two decades. Though much scholarship is focused on her ‘scandalous’ early career, this critical edition of The Invisible Spy (1755) adds to the canon of her later, more sophisticated work....
The Private History of the Court of England: by Sarah Green
1st Edition
By Fiona Price
August 03, 2016
Whilst an important and under-researched example of women's writing, scholars of Romanticism and the nineteenth century will also find much value in this challenging political satire....
The Rash Resolve and Life's Progress: by Eliza Haywood
1st Edition
By Carol Stewart
August 03, 2016
Eliza Haywood was one of the most popular and versatile writers of the eighteenth century. The two novellas in this edition – The Rash Resolve (1724) and Life’s Progress (1748) – show her developing and adapting her ideas on the subject of passion and romance. Though superficially presented as ...
The Romance of Private Life: by Sarah Harriet Burney
1st Edition
By Lorna Clark
August 03, 2016
Contains two tales - "The Renunciation", which presents a colourful picture of life abroad, when an English girl travels to Italy in search of kin and supports herself as an artist, offering an early feminist heroine; and, "The Hermitage", a psychological thriller involving a ruined country maiden ...
The Victim of Fancy: by Elizabeth Sophia Tomlins
1st Edition
By Daniel Cook
August 03, 2016
The Victim of Fancy was first published in December 1787 and, despite favourable reviews, has not been published since. Cook's new scholarly edition of this forgotten novel will be of paramount importance in allowing new insights into the form of the sentimental novel as it actually existed in the ...