Adeline Mowbray, or, The Mother and Daughter is a novel by Amelia Opie that was published in 1804. Many of the heroine's experiences are based on the unconventional life of Mary Wollstonecroft, an acquaintance of Opie. In the novel, Opie explores what might happen when a woman's idealistic philosophical beliefs conflict with society's notions about female sexuality.
The philosophically minded Adeline decides that marriage is an outmoded institution. She therefore refuses marriage to Frederic Glenmurray (modelled on William Godwin), and instead chooses to live with him as his sexual equal. Although Adeline is honourable, clever and honest, she faces social condemnation. She is disowned by her mother and by her respectable friends, and harassed by men who assume that she is sexually available. After Glenmurray dies, Adeline seeks protection by marrying the abusive Mr Berrendale, who ultimately abandons her and their daughter, Editha.
At the end of the novel, the ill Adeline is finally reunited with her mother. Adeline repents having transgressed society's expectations of women, and before she dies leaves instructions on how Editha is to be educated.
During the nineteenth century, the novel was generally seen as a critique of the radical theories proposed by Godwin, Holcroft and Inchbald. [1] The Critical Review did, however, accuse Opie of idealising 'vice' by portraying the loving relationship between Adeline and Glenmurray so positively. [1]
Scholars have suggested that Opie's intentions with Adeline Mowbray were more subversive than they initially appeared. Although Adeline comes to support the institution of marriage, marriage is itself portrayed throughout the novel as something that can also cause women to suffer and be made vulnerable to men. [2] And although Adeline's repentance and premature death were common features of conservative novels about 'fallen women', Patricia A. Matthew argues that 'Adeline does not die the death of a fallen woman but of a female warrior on a domestic battlefield, setting the terms for her daughter's future'. [3]
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects (1792), written by British philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797), is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft responds to those educational and political theorists of the eighteenth century who did not believe women should receive a rational education. She argues that women ought to have an education commensurate with their position in society, claiming that women are essential to the nation because they educate its children and because they could be "companions" to their husbands, rather than mere wives. Instead of viewing women as ornaments to society or property to be traded in marriage, Wollstonecraft maintains that they are human beings deserving of the same fundamental rights as men.
Mary Wollstonecraft was a British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecraft's life, which encompassed several unconventional personal relationships, received more attention than her writing. Wollstonecraft is regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers, and feminists often cite both her life and her works as important influences.
Vanity Fair is a novel by the English author William Makepeace Thackeray, which follows the lives of Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley amid their friends and families during and after the Napoleonic Wars. It was first published as a 19-volume monthly serial from 1847 to 1848, carrying the subtitle Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society, which reflects both its satirisation of early 19th-century British society and the many illustrations drawn by Thackeray to accompany the text. It was published as a single volume in 1848 with the subtitle A Novel without a Hero, reflecting Thackeray's interest in deconstructing his era's conventions regarding literary heroism. It is sometimes considered the "principal founder" of the Victorian domestic novel.
Amelia Opie was an English author who published numerous novels in the Romantic period up to 1828. A Whig supporter and Bluestocking, Opie was also a leading abolitionist in Norwich, England. Hers was the first of 187,000 names presented to the British Parliament on a petition from women to stop slavery.
Free love is a social movement that accepts all forms of love. The movement's initial goal was to separate the state from sexual and romantic matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery. It stated that such issues were the concern of the people involved and no one else. The movement began during the 19th century and was advanced by hippies during the 1960s and early 70s.
Clara Mary Jane Clairmont, or Claire Clairmont as she was commonly known, was the stepsister of the writer Mary Shelley and the mother of Lord Byron's daughter Allegra. She is thought to be the subject of a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
O Crime do Padre Amaro: cenas da vida devota, is a novel by the 19th-century Portuguese writer José Maria de Eça de Queiroz. It was first published in 1875 to great controversy.
Amelia is a sentimental novel written by Henry Fielding and published in December 1751. It was the fourth and final novel written by Fielding, and it was printed in only one edition while the author was alive, although 5,000 copies were published of the first edition. Amelia follows the life of Amelia and Captain William Booth after they are married. It contains many allusions to classical literature and focuses on the theme of marriage and feminine intelligence, but Fielding's stance on gender issues cannot be determined because of the lack of authorial commentary discussing the matter. Although the novel received praise from many writers and critics, it received more criticism from Fielding's competition, possibly resulting from the "paper war" in which the author was involved.
Mary Hays (1759–1843) was an autodidact intellectual who published essays, poetry, novels and several works on famous women. She is remembered for her early feminism, and her close relations to dissenting and radical thinkers of her time including Robert Robinson, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin and William Frend. She was born in 1759, into a family of Protestant dissenters who rejected the practices of the Church of England. Hays was described by those who disliked her as 'the baldest disciple of [Mary] Wollstonecraft' by The Anti Jacobin Magazine, attacked as an 'unsex'd female' by clergyman Robert Polwhele, and provoked controversy through her long life with her rebellious writings. When Hays's fiancé John Eccles died on the eve of their marriage, Hays expected to die of grief herself. But this apparent tragedy meant that she escaped an ordinary future as wife and mother, remaining unmarried. She seized the chance to make a career for herself in the larger world as a writer.
Mary: A Fiction is the only complete novel by 18th-century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. It tells the tragic story of a woman's successive "romantic friendships" with a woman and a man. Composed while Wollstonecraft was a governess in Ireland, the novel was published in 1788 shortly after her summary dismissal and her decision to embark on a writing career, a precarious and disreputable profession for women in 18th-century Britain.
Memoirs of Emma Courtney is an epistolary novel by Mary Hays, first published in 1796. The novel is partly autobiographical and based on the author's own unrequited love for William Frend. Mary Hay's relationship with William Godwin is reflected through her eponymous heroine's philosophical correspondence with Mr Francis. Contemporary moralists were scandalised at the novel's treatment of female passion, but Hays has more recently been called a "feminist pioneer". Contemporary critics wrote of the apparently contrived ending that it was fantastical and unbelievable.
Gail Godwin is an American novelist and short story writer. Godwin has written 14 novels, two short story collections, three non-fiction books, and ten libretti. Her primary literary accomplishments are her novels, which have included five best-sellers and three finalists for the National Book Award. Most of her books are realistic fiction novels that follow a character's psychological and intellectual development, often based on themes taken from Godwin's own life.
Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman is Mary Wollstonecraft's unfinished novelistic sequel to her revolutionary political treatise A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). The Wrongs of Woman was published posthumously in 1798 by her husband, William Godwin, and is often considered her most radical feminist work.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft.
Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson was an English writer of children's books and novels. Some of her many chapbooks adapted existing novels.
The Father and Daughter is a novel by Amelia Opie that was published in 1801. It was Opie's first novel published under her own name.
Dangers of Coquetry is Amelia Opie's first published novel, and deals with issues of female sexuality and the social construction of gender. It was published anonymously in 1790.
Temper, or, Domestic Scenes is a three-volume novel by Amelia Opie that was published in 1812 and 1813. It explores issues concerning mother-daughter relationships, female education, and the unfairness of patriarchal marriage customs.
Madeline, A Tale is a two-volume novel by Amelia Opie that was published in 1822. It was Opie's last completed novel, and explores issues of class, gender and insanity.
Mothers of the Novel: 100 Good Women Writers Before Jane Austen (1986), by Dale Spender, is a foundational study for the reclamation project central to feminist literary studies in English in the late 1980s and 1990s.