Eighteenth-Century Novels by Women

Annotated Edition: An eighteenth-century satirical novel that follows an iron-willed young Englishwoman as she attempts to make her own way in the world. A pioneer in the tradition of English women's fiction, Charlotte Lennox was a valued friend to both Samuel Richardson and Samuel Johnson-and a major influence on Jane Austen. The heroine of Lennox's Henrietta is a young Englishwoman who resists her aunt's pressure to convert to Catholicism and marry an awful man-and as a result is set adrift in London society. But unlike many of her passive, vulnerable contemporaries in fiction, the admirable Henrietta makes her way in the world relying on her own cleverness, conviction, and wit. This groundbreaking work of satire and human folly is republished here in a fully annotated modern edition.