This new study examines the role of the passions in the rise of the English novel. Geoffrey Sill examines medical, religious, and literary efforts to anatomize the passions, paying particular attention to the works of Dr. Alexander Monro of Edinburgh, Reverend John Lewis of Margate, and Daniel Defoe, novelist and natural historian of the passions. He shows that the figure of the "physician of the mind" is prominent not only in Defoe's novels, but also in those of Fielding, Richardson, Smollett, Burney, and Edgeworth.

This edition contains two of Frances Burney's comedies: "The Witlings," (1778-80) which satirizes the bluestockings; and "The Woman Hater" (1800-02), which explores social pretension and gender conflict.

Frances Burney (1752-1840), author Evelina and other novels, was an active diarist and correspondent with a wide circle of relatives and friends throughout her adult life. Her journals and letters are an important source of information about English social life from 1768 to 1838. In the years 1786-91, she served Queen Charlotte as Keeper of the Robes, acquiring a detailed knowledge of the events and people in the court of King George III. This volume is the record of one of those years, 1789, a year in which the King recovered from his madness, the Court took a leisurely tour through...