Charlotte Turner Smith

"In Charlotte Smith's biography, her sister Catherine Ann Dorset reported that "Mrs. Smith left no posthumous works whatsoever. The sweepings of her closet were, without exception, committed to the flames." Despite her family's diligence in destroying her papers, nearly five hundred of Smith's letters survived in twenty-two libraries, archives, and private collections. The present edition makes available most of these previously unpublished letters to publishers, patrons, solicitors, relatives, and friends." "One of the most popular poets of her time, Charlotte Smith revived the sonnet form in England, influencing Wordsworth and Keats. Equally popular as a novelist, she experimented with many genres, and even her children's books were highly regarded by her contemporaries. Smith conducted her public life in the face of profound personal troubles. With little support beyond her wits and her unwavering will, she almost single-handedly provided for a large family.^ The letters yield a wealth of hitherto unknown facts about her miserable failed marriage, her poor health, her poverty, and her twelve children's lives, marriages, and deaths. Her letters enlarge our understanding of her literary achievement, for they show the private world of spirit, determination, anger, and sorrow in which she wrote." "Covering Smith's entire career from 1784 to 1806, the letters also provide new details on the publication of all but two of her twenty-two titles. Smith reveals her customary approaches to composing, dealing with publishers, and exploring new ideas for marketable books. Through correspondence with literary supporters such as William Hayley and aristocratic patrons such as the duchess of Devonshire and the earl of Egremont, the letters also shed light on women and patronage in the late eighteenth century." "As this volume was going to press, the Petworth House Archives turned up fifty-six additional lost letters not seen in at least one hundred years.^ Most are from Smith's early career, along with two letters to her troublesome husband, Benjamin. The archives also preserved fifty letters by Benjamin, the only ones by him known to have survived. Two letters from Benjamin to Charlotte are reprinted in full, and generous excerpts from the rest are included in footnotes, bringing a shadowy figure to life."--BOOK JACKET.

"In The Old Manor House (1794), Charlotte Smith combines elements of the romance, the Gothic, recent history, and culture to produce both a social document and a compelling novel. A "property romance," the love story of Orlando and Monimia revolves around the Manor House as inheritable property. In situating their romance as dependent on the whims of property owners, Smith critiques a society in love with money at the expense of its most vulnerable members, the dispossessed.". "Appendices in this edition include: contemporary responses; writings on the genre debate by Anna Letitia Barbauld, John Moore, and Walter Scott; and historical documents focusing on property laws as well as the American and French revolutions."--BOOK JACKET.

"The plot of Charlotte Smith's autobiographical first novel Emmeline (1788) includes the expected thrills of the eighteenth-century courtship novel: abduction, duels, and a "fairy-tale princess." At the same time, the novel satirically reworks such literary conventions by focusing on the dangers of early engagement and marriage, and challenges a social and legal system in which women are inherently illegitimate subjects." "This Broadview edition includes primary source material relating to the novel's reception; women, marriage, and work; and landscape in eighteenth-century fiction. Mary Hays's biographical writing on Smith is also included, as is selected correspondence."--Jacket.

In The Old Manor House (1794), Charlotte Smith combines elements of the romance, the Gothic, recent history, and culture to produce both a social document and a compelling novel. A "property romance," the love story of Orlando and Monimia revolves around the Manor House as inheritable property. In situating their romance as dependent on the whims of property owners, Smith critiques a society in love with money at the expense of its most vulnerable members, the dispossessed. --www.barnesandnoble.com.

The plot of Charlotte Smith's autobiographical first novel Emmeline (1788) includes the usual thrills of the eighteenth-century courtship novel: abduction, duels, and a "fairy tale princess." At the same time, the novel satirically reworks such literary conventions by focusing on the dangers of early engagement and marriage, and challenges a social and legal system in which women are inherently illegitimate subjects.

"Published here for the first time in a modern edition, Charlotte Smith's third novel is both rivetingly plotted and unique for its time in its powerful depiction of a gifted Romantic woman poet. The novel's heroine, Celestina, abandoned as a child in a French convent, becomes an independent, witty, and accomplished elegiac poet who, in a reversal of the usual pattern of the courtship novel, acts as a mentor to several men in her life. Written at the beginning of the French Revolution, Smith's novel depicts characters challenging both corrupt authority and conventional morality, exemplifying her hope that English society was on the verge of a great change for the better.". "This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction and primary source material relating to the novel's reception, its political contexts (writings by Reverend Richard Price, Edmund Burke, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Thomas Paine), and the author's life."--BOOK JACKET.