Before Jane Austen's novels explored heroines in English society, writers Sarah Fielding and Jane Collier dared to provide commentary on gender and education through self-conscious narratives. Published in 1754 in five parts and divided into three volumes, The Cry stands as one of the most distinctive and intriguing works by women during the florescence of their writing in eighteenth-century England.

Strikingly experimental -- mixing fiction and philosophy, drama and exposition, satire and irony, and singular and choral voices -- The Cry revolves around a main...