This book is written from a woman's viewpoint. Wherever my own judgment has been different from the generally accepted one, as in the estimate of some famous heroines, the point in question has been submitted to other women, and not recorded unless it met with the approval of a large number of women of cultivated taste.
This work was first undertaken at the suggestion of Dr. E. Charlton Black of Boston University for a Master's thesis, and it was due to his appreciative words that it was enlarged into book form. I also wish to thank Professor Ker of London University, and Dr. Henry A. Beers and Dr. Wilbur L. Cross of Yale University for the help which I obtained from them while a student in their classes. It is with the deepest sense of gratitude that I acknowledge the assistance given to me in this work by Mr. Charles Welsh, at whose suggestion the scope of the book was enlarged, and many parts strengthened. I wish especially to thank him for calling my attention to The Cheap Repository of Hannah More, and to the literary value of Maria Edgeworth's stories for children.
It is my only hope that this book may in a small measure fill a want which a school-girl recently expressed to me: "Our Club wanted to study about women, but we have searched the libraries and found nothing."
C. H. W.
CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| CHAPTER I. | |
| Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle(1624-1674)—Aphra Behn(1640-1689)—Mary Manley (1672-1724) | [1] |
| CHAPTER II. | |
| Sarah Fielding (1710-1768)—ElizaHaywood (1693-1756)—CharlotteLennox (1720-1766)—Frances Sheridan(1724-1766) | [24] |
| CHAPTER III. | |
| Frances Burney (1752-1840) | [45] |
| CHAPTER IV. | |
| Hannah More (1745-1833) | [62] |
| CHAPTER V. | |
| Charlotte Smith (1749-1806)—ElizabethInchbald (1753-1821) | [73] |
| CHAPTER VI. | |
| Clara Reeve (1725-1803)—Ann Radcliffe(1764-1822)—Sophia Lee(1750-1824)—Harriet Lee (1766-1851) | [88] |
| CHAPTER VII. | |
| Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849)—LadyMorgan (1783-1859) | [111] |
| CHAPTER VIII. | |
| Elizabeth Hamilton (1758-1816)—AnnaPorter (1780-1832)—JanePorter (1776-1850) | [133] |
| CHAPTER IX. | |
| Amelia Opie (1769-1853)—Mary Brunton(1778-1818) | [149] |
| CHAPTER X. | |
| Jane Austen (1775-1817) | [157] |
| CHAPTER XI. | |
| Susan Edmonstone Ferrier (1782-1854)—MaryRussell Mitford (1787-1855)—AnnaMaria Hall (1800-1881) | [179] |
| CHAPTER XII. | |
| Lady Caroline Lamb (1785-1828)—MaryShelley (1797-1851) | [200] |
| CHAPTER XIII. | |
| Catherine Grace Frances Gore (1799-1861)—AnnaEliza Bray (1790-1883) | [216] |
| CHAPTER XIV. | |
| Julia Pardoe (1806-1862)—FrancesTrollope (1780-1863)—Harriet Martineau(1802-1876) | [231] |
| CHAPTER XV. | |
| Emily Brontë (1818-1848)—AnneBrontë (1820-1849)—CharlotteBrontë (1816-1855) | [247] |
| CHAPTER XVI. | |
| Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810-1865) | [274] |
| Conclusion | [293] |
| Index | [297] |