Marchmont (novel)

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Marchmont is Charlotte Smith's ninth novel, and follows the story of her heroine, Althea Dacres, and the Marchmont family. It was published in August 1796. [1]

Contents

Plot

Volume 1

Chapter 1

Althea Dacres and her aunt Mrs. Trevyllian leave their home in the west of England to visit Sir Audley, Althea's father, at his home in London. From there they travel into Hertfordshire to visit a Mrs. Polwarth, a friend of Mrs. Trevyllian's, only to discover that she is gravely ill. Mrs. Trevyllian stays to nurse her friend, and Althea returns to London to stay at her father's house, where she receives a cold reception from Lady Dacres and especially from her servant, Morris.

Characters

Major characters

Minor characters

Major themes

Publication History

Marchmont was first printed in four volumes and sold by the London publisher Sampson Low in 1796. Between 2005 and 2007, Pickering & Chatto published a 14-volume edition of Smith's collected work, The Works of Charlotte Smith, with Stuart Curran as General Editor. An edition was published in 2017 by Whitlock Publishing, edited and with an introduction by Logan E. Gee.

Reception

Fletcher writes Marchmont was "in general very well received and represented in columes of extracts, a good indicator of popularity, more often than other novels of that year." [2]

For example, one reviewer writes:

The present novel is certainly spun out in the beginning, and wound up too hastily at the conclusion; still the design of showing the misery, which unprincipled men of the law may bring on the innocent, is well imagined. [3]

There were many other contemporary reviews, reflecting similar sentiments, including reviews in Monthly Review , [4] The Monthly Visitor and Entertaining Pocket Companion, [5] and The Critical Review . [6]

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References

  1. Fletcher, Loraine (1998). Charlotte Smith, A Critical Biography. Hampshire and London: Macmillan Press. p. 250.
  2. Fletcher, Loraine (1998). Charlotte Smith, A Critical Biography. Hampshire and London: Macmillan Press. p. 255.
  3. "Marchmont: A Novel". The Analytical Review. 25 (5).
  4. "Marchmont". Monthly Review. 22.
  5. "Marchmont: a Novel". The Monthly Visitor and Entertaining Pocket Companion. 1.
  6. "Marchmont: a Novel". The Critical Review. 19.