The History of Sir George Ellison (1766) is an important novel, both utopian and dystopian. Sir George, a man of benevolence, follows the pattern of the female utopia set forth in Scott's first novel, A Description of Millenium Hall (1762). In this sequel, Scott addresses issues of slavery, marriage, education, law and social justice, class pretensions, and the position of women in society, consistently emphasizing the importance, for both genders and all classes and ages, of devoting one's life to meaningful work. Although she adopted a gradualist approach to reform,...

Frances Brooke (1724-1789), journalist, translator, playwright, novelist, and even co-manager of a theater, was described as "perhaps the first female novel-writer who attained a perfect purity and polish of style." Today, Brooke is known primarily for The History of Emily Montague, one of the earliest novels about Canada, where she lived for a number of years. But it is her third novel, The Excursion, that is an important example of the fashionable and popular English novels of the late 1770s.

Written for the very audience it portrays, this novel introduces the...

Actress, playwright, and novelist, Elizabeth Griffith (1727-1793) won fame in England with the publication in 1757 of the first two volumes of Letters Between Henry and Frances, letters from her own courtship with Richard Griffith whom she secretly married in 1751. Her first novel, The Delicate Distress (1769), focuses on the problems women encounter after marriage -- the issue of financial independence for wives, the consequences of interfaith relationships, and the promiscuity of their husbands.

Against a backdrop of rural England and Paris of the ancien...

The Adventures of David Simple (1744), Sarah Fielding's first and most celebrated novel, went through several editions, the second of which was heavily revised by her brother Henry. This edition includes Henry's "corrections" in an appendix. In recounting the guileless hero's search for a true friend, the novel depicts the derision with which almost everyone treats his sentimental attitudes to human nature. Acclaimed as an accurate portrait of mid-eighteenth-century London, The Adventures of David Simple sets forth some provocative feminist ideas. Also included is Fielding's...

Eliza Haywood (1693?-1756) was one of the first women in England to earn a living writing fiction. Her early tales of amorous intrigue, sometimes based on real people, were exceedingly popular though controversial. Haywood, along with her contemporary Daniel Defoe, did more than any other writer to create a market for fiction in the period just prior to the emergence of Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, and Tobias Smollett, the dominant novelists of the mid-eighteenth century.

The scheming, sexually predatory anti-heroine of The Injur'd Husband is a memorable villain who...

In The Young Philosopher, George Delmont embraces an agrarian life and devotes himself to the pursuit of knowledge. But it is George's love Medora Glenmorris and her mother Laura who provide the emotional core of the novel. Contrasting the pain and suffering of individuals with the idealism of the French Revolution and the hope provided by glimpses of life in America, Smith exposes philosophical enlightenment as an ineffective weapon for fighting the widespread corruption of English society. The early novels of Charlotte Smith (1749-1806) were precursors of the gothic tradition that...

The Reform'd Coquette (1724) tells the story of Amoranda, a good but flighty young woman whose tendency toward careless behavior is finally tamed. Familiar Letters Betwixt a Gentleman and a Lady (1725), a satire of both political debate and women's place in society, portrays a Tory man and a Whig woman who find themselves discussing love, even though they have pledged to remain platonic friends. The Accomplish'd Rake (1727) follows the exploits of Sir John Galliard from youth to manhood, when he is forced to accept responsibility for his actions. Mary Davys...

First published in an era when most novels about young women concentrated on courtship and ended with marriage, The Recess daringly portrays women involved in political intrigues, overseas journeys, and even warfare. The novel is set during the reign of Elizabeth I and features as narrators twin daughters of Mary, Queen of Scots, by a secret marriage. One of the earliest Gothic novels, The Recess pioneered the genre of historical fiction. The novel was also one of the first to describe characters and events from conflicting points of view and was wildly popular in its...

With literature, music constituted the most important activity of poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca's life. The two arts were closely related to each other throughout his career. As a child, Lorca imbibed traditional Andalusian songs from the lips of the family maids, whom he would remember with affection years later. At a very early age he began to study piano, and during his adolescence, music and poetry competed for primacy among his interests. His first book was dedicated to his music teacher, who instilled in him a love for the world of art and creation.

In part I of...

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...