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THE LIFE AND ROMANCES OF

MRS. ELIZA HAYWOOD

BY

GEORGE FRISBIE WHICHER, PH.D.

INSTRUCTOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

1915



_This Monograph has been approved by the Department of English and
Comparative Literature in Columbia University as a contribution to
knowledge worthy of publication._

A. H. THORNDIKE,

_Executive Officer_




PREFACE


The purpose of the following study is not to revive the reputation of a
forgotten author or to suggest that Mrs. Haywood may yet "come into her
own." For the lover of eighteenth century fashions her numerous pages
have indeed a stilted, early Georgian charm, but with the passing of
Ramillies wigs and velveteen small-clothes the popularity of her novels
vanished once for all. She had her world in her time, but that world and
time disappeared with the French Revolution [a]. Now even professed
students of the novel shrink from reading many of her seventy odd
volumes, nor can the infamous celebrity conferred by Pope's attack in
"The Dunciad" save her name from oblivion. But the significance of Mrs.
Haywood's contributions cannot safely be ignored. Her romances of
palpitating passion written between 1720 and 1730 formed a necessary
complement to Defoe's romances of adventure exactly as her Duncan
Campbell pamphlets supplied the one element lacking in his. The domestic
novels of her later life foreshadowed the work of Miss Burney and Miss
Austen, while her career as a woman of letters helped to open a new
profession to her sex. Since even the weakest link in the development of
a literary form is important, I have endeavored to provide future
historians of English fiction with a compact and accurate account of
this pioneer "lady novelist."

Hitherto the most complete summary of Mrs. Haywood's life and writings
has been Sir Sidney Lee's article in the "Dictionary of National
Biography," which adds much information not found in the earlier notices
in Baker's "Biographia Dramatica" and Chalmers' "Biographical
Dictionary." The experienced palates of Mr. Edmund Gosse and Mr. Austin
Dobson have tested the literary qualities respectively of the earlier
and later aspects of her work. Professor Walter Raleigh, Dr. Charlotte
E. Morgan, and Professor Saintsbury have briefly estimated the
importance of her share in the change from romance to novel.

Perhaps the main reason for the inadequacy of these notices lies in the
fact that no one library contains anything like a complete collection of
Mrs. Haywood's innumerable books. In pursuit of odd items I have
ransacked the British Museum, the Bodleian, and several minor literary
museums in England, and in America the libraries of Columbia, Harvard,
Yale, and Brown Universities, the Peabody Institute, and the University
of Chicago. The search has enabled me to correct many inaccuracies in
Miss Morgan's tentative list of prose fiction and even to supplement Mr.
Esdaile's admirable "List of English Tales and Prose Romances printed
before 1740," which mentions only works now extant in British libraries.

In the Bibliography I have adopted an alphabetical arrangement as most
convenient for ready reference. Under the various editions of each book
I have referred to libraries, English or American, where copies are to
be found. Or when no copy was to be had, I have referred to
advertisements, either in the newspapers of the Burney Collection, in
the "Gentleman's Magazine," the "Monthly," or the "Critical," or in the
catalogues of modern booksellers. In the Chronological List I have dated
each work from the earliest advertisement of its publication.

Naturally I have incurred obligations to scholars who have previously
passed over the same little-cultivated territory. Mr. Arundell Esdaile
of the British Museum staff both facilitated the course of my
investigations in England by valuable suggestions and cheered it by his
cordial hospitality. To Professors R.P. Utter of Amherst, J.M. Clapp of
Lake Forest College, A.H. Upham of Miami University, and A.H. Thorndike
of Columbia I am indebted for friendly advice, encouragement, and
helpful criticism. And above all my thanks are due to Professor W.P.
Trent, whose love of eighteenth century letters suggested the subject of
this research, whose sage and kindly supervision fostered the work
through every stage in its development, and for whose forthcoming "Life
and Times of Daniel Defoe" this monograph is intended as a footnote.

G.F.W.

URBANA, ILLINOIS