Popular Fiction by Women, 1660-1730

by Paula R. Backscheider (Editor), John J. Richetti (Editor)

Popular Fiction by Women 1660-1730 gathers together for the first time a sparkling selection of shorter fiction by the most successful women writers of the period, from Aphra Behn, the first important English female professional writer, to Penelope Aubin and Eliza Haywood, who with Daniel Defoe dominated prose fiction in the 1720s. The texts included were among the best-selling titles of their time, and played a key role in the expanding market for narrative in the early eighteenth century. Crucial to the development of the longer novel of manners and morals that emerged in the mid-eighteenth century, these novellas have been much neglected by literary historians, but now--with the impetus of feminist criticism--have been reestablished as an essential chapter in the history of the novel in English. All lovers of fiction will find much here to delight, stimulate, and educate.

Genres: Fiction, 18th Century, Classics

364 pages, Paperback

First published February 20, 1997

Reviews

[Anna Potzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

All of these authors and stories are worth a read, especially if you are interested in the beginning of the novel in England. Not surprisingly, these women writers were not considered worth study compared to the likes of Richardson and Dafoe, but that is so easily disproven in these novels.

[zulu · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun anthology for all of you who're desperately interested in the novel of 1660-1730, which of course is most of you. Right? The best thing about it being, it's a great refutation of the Defoe --> Richardson --> Fielding school of thought in terms of the development of the novel. There were blockbuster novelists in the early 1700s, writing what people wanted to read, which was mostly romance and high adventure (and pirate attacks!). And those novelists were largely women. Defoe and Haywood were the two biggest sellers of the 1720s and everyone remembers Defoe, but what Haywood have you read recently, right?

So this anthology does a great job of contextualizing the early women novelists, as well as laying out some of the excellent examples in a chronological way. You got your Elizabeth Rowe, your Mary Davys, and your Aphra Behn here. But today I want to talk about Eliza Haywood's "Fantomina", because I think it does something amazingly interesting, rare even among the romantic sensibility of many of these novels.

"Fantomina" is about a young woman who is very proper, very virtuous, but one day when she's at a play she sees a bunch of upper-class dudes in the lower boxes flirting with the prostitutes in the pit. And she's like, "Man, I wonder what it would be like to throw virtue to the wind and be a prostitute." She picks out the guy she thinks is hottest, and through disguise and deception, she does exactly that. But that's not the end of the story! When he (inevitably) loses interest in her, she disguises herself differently again, and seduces him all over again! Each time he gets bored with one conquest, she shows up in yet another new costume and catches his interest all over again. He thinks he's so bad, ruining this series of women, but in fact Fantomina's gaze is privileged, her sexual pleasure is what drives the narrative, and she out-smarts him at every turn to get what she wants. She's only pulled up short because she gets pregnant and can't hide it, and if the pill had been around back then, I think she would've just kept on going. So it's a narrative about how fickle men are (and how non-virtuous) and how women have, y'know, actual desires, and the means to carry out elaborate deceptions.

This is unusual, as I say, because at the time most authors were twisting themselves into pretzels to assure readers that their novels had good role models and that everyone virtuous was rewarded while anyone with a vice got their comeuppance. (Also it's unusual in that there are no pirates.) But Haywood was the most risqué of writers at the time; her novels were known for, like, DEPICTING SEX ON THE PAGE, omg, and things of this sort.

Now, Fantomina does get a comeuppance of a sort, but it's very minimalized compared to the amount of page time she spends doing what (and who) she wants. The men's foibles are much more evident, and even satirized: how can this one guy not notice that he's been with the same woman five times over? And for that reason, I'm going to talk about this story in my essay on experimenting with genre in order to depict gender in new and startling ways.

[Jennifer DuBose · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could give this 20 stars, I would!

I had no idea there is a genre called amatory fiction which is 18th century women authors writing powerful, critical, political satire in the form of “silly love stories for ladies” so as not to upset or cause suspicion in the menfolk. How have I not known about Aphra Behn until now???

[Adam Stevenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

My blog has a far longer description of each of the books in this selection and can be found at the www.grubstlodger.uk

Here are the one sentence reviews.

The History of a Nun by Aphra Behn
A constant surprise and delight with a great ending.

The Secret History of Queen Zarah by Delrivier Manley (but not actually)
A little flat, not particularly sparkling characters but interesting to read after watching the film ‘The Favourite’.

Love Intrigues by Jane Barker
A well told story of miscommunicated love with a slightly disappointing ending.

The Adventures of the Count de Vinevil by Penelope Aubin
Racist, islamaphobic, all together icky and generally unpleasant which made in engaging in an anti-likeable way.

The British Recluse by Eliza Haywood
Well told brace of ‘rake’ stories which are good examples of their genre and don’t go on forever and have an empowering ending, unlike some (*cough* Clarissa *cough*).

Fantomina by Eliza Haywood
Utterly nutty and daft with a wonderfully batty story seen through to the bitter end. Best story here.

The Reformed Coquette by Mary Davys
Also wonderfully over the top, especially in terms of all the cartoony-sneaky rakes who want to abduct our heroine. Second best book here.

Extracts from Friendship in Death by Elizabeth Singer Rowe
Perhaps this makes sense in full better than as extracts, but letters from dead people to living, telling them all the secrets they’ve learned since they died, it’s rather strange.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fascinating anthology of short works of fiction by popular female authors from the time period listed. It's really interesting to see what women were writing, to whom those writings were directed, and how that informs future works of fiction.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't read the whole anthology, but I really enjoyed the works I read.