Novels of the eighteenth century usually offer wedded bliss as a reward to their heroines. How did these novels affect and how were they affected by the women who were reading them? By drawing upon thousands of unpublished documents from the era, written by more than 250 women, Brophy creates a picture of the real lives of eighteenth-century women and then examines the work of seven novelists in relation to this portrait.
Excerpts from letters, diaries, and journals, written by women ranging from servants to nobility, reveal the stages of feminine life in the 1700s: dutiful daughter,...
Novels of the eighteenth century usually offer wedded bliss as a reward to their heroines. How did these novels affect and how were they affected b...