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Charlotte Lennox’s Euphemia, published in 1790 at the ...)
Charlotte Lennox’s Euphemia, published in 1790 at the end of her professional career, is an extraordinary account of pre-Revolutionary America from a woman’s perspective. Constructed from letters between Euphemia Neville and her friend Maria Harley, the novel tells the story of Euphemia’s marriage to a thoughtless, arrogant man. During the years Euphemia lives in New York City and at the forts at Albany and Schenectady as the wife of a British army officer, she chronicles in her letters to Maria both her private life and how that life intersects with those of other British men and women, as well as the Dutch, Native American, and African American inhabitants of the colony. Set partially in New York State, where Lennox had herself lived as a girl, it also contains a version of a captivity narrative in the story of the capture of Euphemia’s son by Hurons.
This Broadview edition includes contemporary reviews of Euphemia and a wealth of other contemporary materials on marriage, travel, the picturesque, and the captivity narrative.
(In addition to its importance to the study of the develop...)
In addition to its importance to the study of the development of Lennox as a novelist, Harriot Stuart is significant as well for its heroine who, while possessing many of the outward characteristics of the sentimental heroine of the day, ultimately breaks with this tradition to stand as a model for the strong, passionate, and individualistic heroines who were to become so important to the English novel in the second half of the eighteenth century and beyond.
Written in the popular memoir form, The Life of Harriot Stuart is also intriguing to us for what it reveals, via the use Lennox herself made of it later in her life, of the struggles of an ambitious, shrewd, independent-minded woman writer to be at once professionally accepted and thus economically secure, and yet to maintain her identity. Faced with a literary marketplace where professional well-being necessitated female deference to such influential male writers as Johnson and Richardson, and a marriage that required the same of her as a wife, Lennox allowed the facts of Harriot's life to be viewed as autobiographical. The life of her first heroine seems to have provided Lennox with an escape, serving as a kind of wish-fulfillment later in a life that did not give her opportunities for strong, passionate, individualistic behavior. As several critics have shown, Harriot Stuart adds to our knowledge of the facts of Lennox's life, yet the novel also reveals the subversive, sustaining power of fiction for the eighteenth-century woman writer faced with the question of female identity and self-revelation/identification.
Harriot Stuart is also one of the first British novels partially set in America and is also interesting for its innovative use of the captivity narrative as a vehicle for social criticism. Assuming her audience's familiarity with works in the popular genre, such as Mary Rowlandson's The Sovereignty and Goodness of God ... A Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration, published in Boston in 1682, Lennox introduces the savage, as she does the pirate, only to question their validity as stereotypical manifestations of the criminal and violent.
This critical edition of Lennox's novel uses as its copy-text the first, and only known, edition of Harriot Stuart. The notes to the edition try to clarify the text for the modern reader by identifying people, places, and events, and commenting upon the ways in which aspects of the novel reflect or reject mid-eighteenth century social and literary prose.
Charlotte Lennox, née Ramsay (c. 1730 – 4 January 1804) was a Scottish author and poet. She is most remembered now as the author of The Female Quixote and for her association with Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, and Samuel Richardson, but she had a long career and wrote poetry, prose, and drama. NO, my dear Charlotte, I detest marriage— I have, every day fresh reasons to confirm me in my love of liberty. Shall I, without having the fear of misery before my eyes, run willfully into the snare, and yield up my glorious freedom to that tyrant, man? What should I gain by such a sacrifice?—Coldness and neglect: —
(A pioneer in the tradition of English women's fiction, Ch...)
A pioneer in the tradition of English women's fiction, Charlotte Lennox was valued friend to both Samuel Richardson and Samuel Johnson and a major influence on Jane Austen. The heroine of Charlotte Lennox's Henrietta is a young Englishwoman who resists her aunt's pressure to convert to Catholicism and is set adrift in London society. But unlike many of her passive, vulnerable contemporaries in fiction, the admirable Henrietta makes her way in the world relying on her own cleverness, conviction, and wit. This groundbreaking work of satire and human folly is republished here in a fully annotated modern edition.
Old City Manners. A comedy in five acts and in prose, altered from the original Eastward Hoe, written by Ben Jonson, Chapman, and Marston.
(Mark Twain once famously said "there was but one solitary...)
Mark Twain once famously said "there was but one solitary thing about the past worth remembering, and that was the fact that it is past and can't be restored." Well, over recent years, The British Library, working with Microsoft has embarked on an ambitious programme to digitise its collection of 19th century books.
There are now 65,000 titles available (that's an incredible 25 million pages) of material ranging from works by famous names such as Dickens, Trollope and Hardy as well as many forgotten literary gems , all of which can now be printed on demand and purchased right here on Amazon.
Further information on The British Library and its digitisation programme can be found on The British Library website.
The Female Quixote: or The Adventures of Arabella (Oxford World's Classics)
(The Female Quixote, a vivacious and ironical novel parody...)
The Female Quixote, a vivacious and ironical novel parodying the style of Cervantes, portrays Arabella, the beautiful daughter of a marquis, whose passion for reading romances colors her approach to her own life and causes many comical and melodramatic misunderstandings among her relatives and admirers. Both Joseph Fielding and Samuel Johnson greatly admired Lennox, and this novel established her as one of the most successful practitioners of the "Novel of Sentiment."
About the Series: For over 100 years
Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
The Works of Charlotte Lennox: The Female Quixote, Euphemia, Philander, Sophia, The Life of Harriot Stuart, The Sister (6 Books With Active Table of Contents)
(This collection gathers together the works by Charlotte L...)
This collection gathers together the works by Charlotte Lennox in a single, convenient, high quality, and extremely low priced Kindle volume!
Euphemia
Philander. A Dramatic Pastoral.
Sophia
The Female Quixote ; or, the Adventures of Arabella
The Life of Harriot Stuart
The Sister: A Comedy
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The first novel to be written for serial publication b...)
The first novel to be written for serial publication by a major female author, Sophia follows the story of two siblings, the virtuous and well-read eponymous heroine and her flighty and coquettish sister. While the latter leads a vapid life in the fashionable world of London, the former flees from a potential seducer to the country, where she pursues true friendship, learning, and an independent living. Previously out of print, the novel explores such issues as the place of female education, the opposition of city and country, the emergence of the literary marketplace, and the development of the individual.
This Broadview edition reproduces images from the novel’s original serial publication and also includes other articles from Lennox’s periodical The Lady’s Museum, contemporary reviews of Sophia, and writings on sentimentalism.
Hermione, or the orphan sisters. A novel. In four volumes. ... Volume 3 of 4
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.
Shakespear Illustrated, Or, the Novels and Histories, On Which the Plays of Shakespear Are Founded; Volume 2
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This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
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As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Charlotte Ramsay Lennox was an American novelist, dramatist, and translator. She was also an editor of The Lady's Museum, a monthly magazine published in the United Kingdom between 1760 and 1761.
Background
Charlotte Ramsay Lennox was born in New York, possibly in Albany where she spent most of her girlhood. Her father, James Ramsay, an army officer, is said (with no evidence) to have been lieutenant-governor of the province. Her childhood in New York was not happy, judging from a satire in her poems. At about the age of fifteen she was sent to England to be educated by a wealthy aunt, but on her arrival she found the lady incurably insane. Shortly after this her father died, leaving his widow and Charlotte unprovided for.
Career
At the age of twenty-seven Lennox published her first book, Poems on Several Occasions, which was dedicated to Lady Isabella Finch, who probably had befriended the young woman. A year later (1748) she played in comedies at Richmond, where Garrick went to find some promising actors. Horace Walpole said that she was a "deplorable actress".
Perhaps the most pleasant and valuable friendship in her life was with Samuel Johnson. He encouraged and advised her in her writing, introduced her to his friends and to other literary men who could help her, wrote favorable reviews of her books, quoted her in the Dictionary, and wrote dedications and other items for her. When her novel Harriot Stuart appeared he gave an all-night party to some twenty guests in celebration. His admiration seems to have aroused the jealousy of the other bluestockings in his circle. "Mrs. Thrale says that though her books are generally approved, nobody likes her". Johnson introduced her to Samuel Richardson and she likewise won his favor; she was a frequent visitor at his house and was admitted to his readings. In several places in her books she paid homage to these friends. Fielding also was an admirer and wrote enthusiastically of her work.
Her first novel, The Life of Harriot Stuart (1750), was in part autobio-graphical--an unorganized account of the heroine's misfortunes, adventures, and love affairs. Her most famous was The Female Quixote, or the Adventures of Arabella (1752), which burlesqued the old French romances of Scudéry in the story of a girl who formed her notions of life and love from such reading. A more exciting plot is in The History of Henrietta (1758), which she later dramatized. Her most sentimental and least effective work, Sophia (1762), was regretted even by her friendly critics. Her late novel, Euphemia (1790), written in old age, with feeble morality and delicate sensibility, was kindly reviewed and generally ignored.
She was unsuccessful in her association with the theatre, both as an actress and as a dramatist. A poetic pastoral, Philander (1758), was not produced; nor was Angelica, or Quixote in Petticoats (1758), which was based on the theme of her novel, The Female Quixote. Garrick said that it too closely resembled Steele's Tender Husband. A hostile group hissed her best play, The Sister (1769), and it was withdrawn from Covent Garden after one performance. This comedy used the main theme of her novel Henrietta, and Burgoyne's Heiress is indebted to it for its best parts. At Garrick's suggestion she modernized Eastward Hoe under the title Old City Manners (1775), produced at the Theatre-Royal--introducing elegance at the expense of the vitality of the Elizabethan classic.
Another division of her literary work is the translations from the French. These include The Memoirs of M. de Bethune, Duke of Sully (1756); The Memoirs of the Countess of Berci (1756), a romance nearly as absurd as those she burlesqued in The Female Quixote; Memoirs for the History of Madame de Maintenon, and of the Last Age (1757), translated from the French of Angliviel de la Baumelle; The Greek Theatre of Father Brumoy (1759), from the French of Pierre Brumoy, to which Dr. Johnson and others contributed; and Meditations and Penitential Prayers Written by the Duchess de la Vallière (1774). She wrote Shakespear Illustrated (1753) to show the sources of the plays, and generally condemned Shakespeare for a lack of originality, morality, and artistry, quoting much from Johnson, and following Rymer's lead.
In 1760-1761 she published The Lady's Museum, a periodical described by Nichols as "consisting of a Course of Female Education and variety of other Particulars for the Information and Amusement of the Ladies". Her books brought her very little income and her old age was "clouded by penury and sickness". At the close of her life she received a pension from the Royal Literary Fund and was befriended by the Rt. Hon. George Rose and the Rev. William Beloe. She died on January 4, 1804, at Dean's Yard, Westminster, and "was buried with the common soldiery in the further burying-ground of Broad Chapel". Reynolds painted her portrait in 1761, of which an engraving by Bartolozzi was printed in Hardinge's Shakespeare, and one by Cooke accompanied the sketch of Mrs. Lennox in the Lady's Monthly Museum for June 1813.
On October 6, 1747, Charlotte was married to Alexander Lennox who was in the printing shop of Strachan in Cornhill, and who was later employed in the Customs Office as tide-waiter. She had a daughter who died in 1802 and a son who was forced to leave the country, after committing an offense, and came to America. Her husband died about 1797, but for several years he had had nothing to do with his family.