Novel Ventures: Fiction and Print Culture in England, 1690-1730 0813940133, 9780813940137

Citation preview

Novel Ventures

NOVEL VENT UR E S Fiction and Print Culture in England, 1690–1730

s Leah Orr

University of Virginia Press Charlottesville and London

University of Virginia Press © 2017 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper First published 2017 ISBN 978-0-8139-4013-7 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-8139-4014-4 (ebook) 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. Cover art: Detail of Bookseller & Author, hand-colored aquatint/etching, lettered with title and production detail: “H. Wigstead delint. / S. Alken fecti / Publish’d Septr. 25. 1784 by I. R. Smith No. 83 Oxford Street.” (Copyright The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved)

Contents

Acknowledgments

vii

Part One · Fiction in the Print Culture World 1 · Defining the “Novel” · Eighteenth-Century Concepts of Fiction 2 · Fiction and the Book Trade

28

3 · Authors and Anonymous Publication

75

Part Two · Fiction in England, 1690–1730 4 · Reprints of Earlier English Fiction

103

5 · Foreign Fiction in English Translation 6 · Fiction with Purpose 7 · Fiction for Entertainment

143

183 226

Conclusion · Did the Novel Rise? 263 Appendix · Fiction Not in McBurney’s Check List Notes 273 Bibliography of Works Cited Index

323

297

271

3

Acknowledgments

Many people have helped me see this project to completion. I am most grateful to Robert D. Hume, who read countless early drafts of each chapter. He showed me how to ask questions and find their answers, how to judge sources, and how to accept the limitations of historical evidence. Several people read the complete manuscript: Laura Knoppers, John Harwood, and Philip Jenkins devoted much time and effort to helping me plan, refine, and revise the project, and I appreciate their rigor as well as their encouragement. In the late stages, Paula McDowell and an anonymous reviewer read the manuscript and provided detailed and insightful suggestions for improvement, and Angie Hogan and the staff at the University of Virginia Press have made this process a pleasure. The final version is much the better for the work and advice of these scholars, and I am grateful to them for their thoughtful consideration and generous assistance. My initial research for this book was supported by a fellowship from the Committee for Early Modern Studies along with the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Penn State University, which gave me a semester of time off from teaching and a quiet space to write. The Penn State Department of English provided me with a travel grant for research at the British Library. In the final stages of this project, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette granted me a Summer Research Award to provide me with time to complete revisions. During the course of researching and writing this project, I also benefited from feedback from scholars at conferences. Parts of an early draft of chapter 3 were presented at the Daniel Defoe Society Conference in 2011, and part of chapter 4 was presented at the American Society for EighteenthCentury Studies Annual Meeting in 2012. The discussions that followed those presentations were extremely helpful to me in thinking about the project as a whole. I have enjoyed the camaraderie and research of scholars at both these organizations as well as the East- Central American Society for vii

Eighteenth-Century Studies and the Aphra Behn Society. Too many people have offered encouragement and inspiration to name here, but I am particularly grateful to Eve Bannet, Gabriel Cervantes, Laura Engel, Stephen Gregg, Kathryn King, Jim May, Andreas Mueller, Max Novak, Ben Pauley, Jason Pearl, Ric Reverand, John Richetti, Pat Rogers, Manuel Schonhorn, Nicholas Seager, Jacob Sider Jost, Rivka Swenson, and James Winn. Along the way I received advice and encouragement of mentors and friends at several institutions. As a sophomore at the University of Washington I met Thomas Lockwood, who first encouraged me to pursue eighteenth-century studies and let me take his seminar on Richardson and Fielding. He introduced me to Ian Watt’s The Rise of the Novel, and I am sure he did not expect where that would lead. At Penn State, I appreciated the wisdom of Kit Hume, Nicholas Joukovsky, Marcy North, and Garrett Sullivan. I learned much from the eighteenth-century group—Ashley Marshall, David Spielman, Patricia Gael, and Julian Fung—and fellow early modern scholars Ryan Hackenbracht and Paul Zajac. The English departments at Dickinson College and, more recently, at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette have both been immensely supportive as I worked on this book. Finally, my largest debt of gratitude is to my parents, Leonard and Sarah, who have always encouraged me in every way. It is to them that this book is dedicated.

viii · Acknowledgments

Part One

s FICTION IN THE PR INT C U LT U R E W O R L D

1 Defining the “Novel” Eighteenth-Century Concepts of Fiction

s What do we know about early fiction? Several general premises come to mind: (1) it derived from a long tradition of romance and spiritual writing; (2) verisimilitude became increasingly important; (3) fiction was the underdog of the literary world, long read mainly by women and servants; (4) people knew by the mid-eighteenth century that there was a new type of fiction, the “novel,” that was more complex and more worth reading; (5) the fiction that was significant was new works written in English; and (6) increasing interest in fiction can be linked to growing literacy rates among the middle class.1 These ideas are frequently repeated by critics of early fiction, and they are derived from a very few texts. Literary historians have traditionally seen fiction as developmental, proceeding from the past to the present along a single continuum, becoming more advanced and more closely resembling the works we call “novels” today. But fiction in the early eighteenth century is complex and messy, often without clear definition or aim. In the face of such chaos, many historians have sought order by concentrating on those texts that can be assembled into a linear progression. Something does change in the eighteenth century, and to many scholars, the works of Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding appear to explain how we get from Arcadia to Middlemarch. I am proposing here that we reconsider this model for literary history by starting from the texts without predetermined conclusions. The traditional narrative of the “rise” of the novel in the eighteenth century does 3

not work if we look at more texts, which is easier to do now than it was in the past. In order to gain an accurate idea of what fiction was printed in this time period, I read the nearly five hundred separate works of fiction printed in England between 1690 and 1730. I developed this list of primary texts by beginning with bibliographies of fiction by Charles Mish and William McBurney, then supplementing these with information from the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, the Term Catalogues, and the English Short Title Catalogue. I used Early English Books Online and Eighteenth Century Collections Online to find copies of many of these texts, and searched the Burney Papers from the British Library for newspaper advertisements showing prices of fiction. My extensive use of online databases and digitalized texts has made strikingly clear why this type of study has not yet been done: it is really only feasible by means of these new resources. The works on my list that are available in print editions are almost all by canonical authors—Behn, Bunyan, Manley, Haywood, Defoe—and so of course my predecessors, for whom this was the primary means of reading early fiction, depended on these few authors. My main argument in what follows is about the fiction itself, but in the scope of my study I am also proposing a new way of approaching literary history. By using newly available technology to study all printed texts from a certain time period (not just those in modern editions), we can achieve an understanding of the literature of the past that is more historically sensitive and comprehensive. An explanation is in order about my date range. Many scholars of early fiction have chosen starting dates such as 1660, 1688, or 1719 for political or literary reasons, and many of them have ended in 1719 or 1740. Focusing on the publication of a single work, however, is misleading: while both Robinson Crusoe and Pamela were popular and in some ways influential, neither brought about the sort of widespread change that such a starting or ending date would imply. Similarly, political events such as the accession of kings have very little to do with the publication of fiction. For this reason, I have chosen the somewhat arbitrary dates of 1690 and 1730 for my starting and ending points. While not significant in themselves, they encompass the whole of this time period of dramatic change in fiction. In addition, the first copyright act in England was the Statute of Anne in 1710, so my date range enables me to give equal attention to the twenty years before and after this law. Of course, I am actually covering all the earlier texts that were still being reprinted—including fictional adaptations of medieval works 4 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

like Reynard the Fox and Robin Hood, and Elizabethan fiction by Nashe, Deloney, Sidney, and others. By acknowledging the arbitrariness of the date range, I hope to approach the works without fixed ideas about the influence of particular texts or political events. Using so many primary texts means that the treatment of each is necessarily brief. I give preference to texts important to their readers, not to modern critics: The Unfortunate Traveller is shortchanged here compared to Telemachus. Many of the works discussed are uninteresting to the modern reader, and I am not suggesting that we should start teaching Nine Pious Pilgrims as part of the undergraduate survey. But these texts are important to the history of print and the history of literature, and they are part of a dynamic period of political, economic, and literary change. For reasons of brevity I have not represented all the interpretations of various critics on a few particular texts. I have tried to represent major interpretations fairly and to give due credit to my predecessors, but the aim of this study is chiefly historical rather than critical. Fiction in the eighteenth century, as today, was a business as well as an art, and this study is concerned with how much the one influences the other. Ultimately, the argument of this book is that booksellers published what they believed would sell, and in this period they exerted far greater influence on the development of fiction than did individual authors or acts of creative genius. In the chapters that follow, I shall describe the circumstances of reading, writing, and publishing, and the various kinds of fiction produced in the early eighteenth century. First, however, there is a problem of definition. What counts as a “novel”? Or even as “fiction”? These questions cannot wholly be answered by turning to the terminology used in the period, but the genre terms found on title pages and advertisements and the discussions of genre in prefaces give us some clues as to what eighteenth-century writers thought they were doing.

Defining the “Novel”: Problems of Scope Fiction, unlike poetry or drama, is difficult to define and isolate from other literary genres like biography, travelogue, or spiritual narrative. What do we mean by “early fiction”? Do we mean only works that look like modern novels? All imaginative prose, including fables, sermon anecdotes, and jests? What about works based on factual or plausible events, but embellished with fictional details? What time period constitutes “early”? Scholars Defining the “Novel” · 5

studying fiction before 1740 have long known of the wide range of fiction— Arundell Esdaile published his bibliography in 1912—but much of it has remained unread and unacknowledged.2 This omission has three main causes: (1) methodological reasons for keeping the scope of literary history narrow, (2) definitional restrictions in determining what counts as “early fiction,” and (3) limited access to primary texts. In the early part of the twentieth century, scholars mostly focused on a few individual authors as exemplars of larger trends. Since the 1970s, literary historians have included “minor” fiction writers alongside the traditional major authors. The surviving texts are scattered among libraries around the world, which has made a comprehensive examination impractical until very recently. Now, however, a much more inclusive study is possible with electronic access to most of the extant works of fiction from the period 1690–1730. Since the practical difficulty of accessing texts is no longer a problem, we need to reconsider the methodological and definitional arguments in favor of limiting the fiction included in historical studies. Until the late twentieth century, only a small number of early fiction writers appeared in literary histories. The Cambridge History of English Literature (1907) exemplifies the “great man” approach to selecting authors and texts for discussion, with volume titles such as The Age of Dryden and From Steele and Addison to Pope and Swift. The only lengthy treatment of a fiction writer prior to 1740 is W. P. Trent’s essay on Defoe, which treats him as though he were writing in complete isolation.3 George Sherburn’s volume of A Literary History of England (1948) includes Defoe, Swift, Johnson, and Goldsmith, but only within a narrative of the rise and fall of classicism.4 Bonamy Dobrée mentions just Defoe and Swift in his discussion of fiction in English Literature in the Early Eighteenth Century (1959).5 Histories of fiction are only slightly broader. Ernest A. Baker’s massive History of the English Novel (1926) includes more authors, but relegates them to subordinate chapters with titles like “The Followers of Mrs. Behn.”6 Alan Dugald McKillop’s The Early Masters of English Fiction (1956) discusses Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne; Ian Watt (1957) pares this list down to just Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding, with a bit on Sterne.7 While such a narrow scope allows for more concentration on particular texts, it presents a misleading version of history in which a very few authors appear to connect directly to each other without any other influences. More recent histories of fiction have been somewhat wider in their scope. The traditional model of focusing chapters on famous authors or works is 6 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

still very much in use, though more authors appear regularly. John Richetti’s Popular Fiction before Richardson (1969) was one of the first to break away from the traditional canon, including chapters on Manley, Haywood, Aubin, Barker, and Rowe as well as Defoe, with extended discussions of some lesser-known writers. William Ray (1990) adds the works of French authors Madame de La Fayette, Marivaux, Rousseau, Diderot, and Laclos to the usual group of Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, and Sterne; William B. Warner (1998) has chapters on the works of Behn, Manley, Haywood, Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding.8 These later studies focus on fewer than ten authors, with only brief reference to the other fiction from the period. Taxonomic histories avoid the emphasis on authors, but canonical authors continue to dominate. Michael McKeon (1987) uses both approaches, with six ideologically focused chapters and the remaining five on Cervantes, Bunyan, Defoe, Swift, and Richardson and Fielding. He has fifty-one references to Defoe outside of the chapter specifically on his work, but only two references each to James Harrington, Madeleine de Scudéry, and François Rabelais, and just one mention apiece of Richard Head, Thomas Nashe, and Margaret Cavendish. J. Paul Hunter’s Before Novels (1990) includes chapters on readers, journalism, and didactic writing, but has 105 references to Defoe or his fictions, and just two citations to Benjamin Keach and one to Nashe. Neither McKeon nor Hunter claims to be doing a comprehensive survey, but the conclusions they draw about fiction in general are based on analyses of very few texts—the same works that have featured in histories of fiction since the beginning of the twentieth century. More recently, Patricia Meyer Spacks (2006) divides texts into thematic categories such as “Novels of Adventure” or “The Novel of Manners,” which highlight common themes but omit outliers.9 These examples demonstrate the connection between methodology and scope. Efforts to expand the breadth of early fiction studied have succeeded in bringing Behn and perhaps Haywood into the ranks of Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding, but the method of writing history based on a few case studies has remained the same. A study that has too wide a scope, however, can lose argumentative focus. Paul Salzman’s English Prose Fiction, 1558– 1700 (1985) is the most comprehensive account of early fiction, and he has very short chapters on texts from authors including Greene, Nashe, Sidney, Deloney, Bunyan, Dunton, Cavendish, and others, as well as translated fiction and jest books. With so many disparate texts treated equally, however, his book functions mainly as a reference work. Defining the “Novel” · 7

Bibliographies have a wider range of texts by both famous and unknown authors. Their compilers still have to address some of the same questions as authors of literary histories, including how to distinguish fiction from other prose forms and how to list anonymous literature. Esdaile writes in the introduction to his English Tales and Romances that “even the distinction between prose and verse becomes occasionally, as in some mixed Elizabethan pamphlets, not very easy to follow,” and his ending date “was really fixed for me at 1740 by the critics, more numerous perhaps than eminent, who have called Richardson’s Pamela, which appeared in that year, the first English novel” (xi). Charles C. Mish’s bibliography derives from Esdaile.10 William Harlin McBurney’s Check List of English Prose Fiction, 1700–1739 includes only prose works that are “fictitious,” but omits “short character sketches, jest books, topical pamphlets, dialogues, chap-books, and fictional pieces in periodicals,” with a few exceptions (ix). Clearly, the compilers of these bibliographies limit their definition of fiction to works that resemble modern novels: long prose narratives chiefly composed of nonfactual material. By the nature of their organization, bibliographies tend to favor works that have known authors. Esdaile, Mish, and McBurney sort works by author. Of the 337 entries in McBurney’s list, 64 (19 percent) are said to be written or translated by either Defoe or Haywood.11 While overly eager attributions made by other bibliographers can account for some of the works in this high number, it also indicates McBurney’s tendency to include works with identifiable authors. He mentions “Defoe’s” The Apparition of One Mrs. Veal as an example of a work he has included even though, at only eight pages, it does not fit his criteria (ix). The fiction section of The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature is divided into two parts, listing just eight “Principal Novelists”—Bunyan, Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Smollett, Burney, and, oddly, Beckford. Everything else falls under the category of “Minor Fiction.”12 Robert Adams Day compiled the list of “Minor Fiction,” and he explains that he was “selective,” choosing works based on “early or unusual developments in fictional technique or in quality; popularity and influence, irrespective of literary merit; modern edns, reprints, studies; and interest as illustrating popular movements in fiction” (975). Of the 210 “minor” works listed as first published in the period 1690–1730, just 48 (23 percent) are anonymous. Day apparently considers fiction by known authors to have been most significant for literary technique, popularity, and influence in modern criticism, or as representative of 8 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

trends. Intentionally or not, bibliographies have favored attributed works and thereby imply that the bulk of anonymous fiction is less worthwhile. While many scholars were long dependent on the few works of fiction in modern editions or available on microfilm, we now have electronic access to a tremendous range of eighteenth-century texts. As of 2016, Early English Books Online (EEBO) has 128,000 records, and Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) has 180,000 records. The English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) reflects the holdings of more than two thousand libraries. This means that most extant items are immediately locatable, and 90 percent are available instantly to any scholar with access to these databases. With so many texts at issue, however, there are inevitably problems: The ESTC differs without explanation from printed bibliographies on the dating of many works, and attribution problems abound in all three databases. Translations and reprints are sometimes recorded as such, and sometimes listed as original new works.13 Still, the accessibility of texts and bibliographic records online means that a greater degree of comprehensiveness is now possible than was ever thinkable before. Thus, I do not mean to fault my predecessors for the fact that they only examined a limited number of texts, but rather to comment on the nature of their selectivity and the conclusions drawn from such evidence. Even with virtually all relevant texts available, a scholar must determine what exactly counts as fiction. In the absence of clear terminology from the eighteenth century, many critics have relied on twentieth-century definitions of “fiction.” This is a reasonable solution, but frequently leads to a warped view of early fiction as incomplete versions of twentieth-century forms. McKeon makes the very good point that critics often try “to discriminate the ‘factual’ from the ‘fictional’ in a way that is recognizably ‘modern,’ ” and as he later explains, “there is often very little distance between imaginary voyages that undertake, with some self-consciousness, the parody of naive empiricism and those that claim historicity with earnest and undisciplined exuberance.”14 Eighteenth-century writers were not as concerned with distinguishing fact from fiction as we are, so they seldom provide reliable information about the factuality of their texts. This is one of the main premises of Lennard Davis’s Factual Fictions—in his view, the use of fiction to embellish fact led to works that were entirely fictional. Even works that claim to be truthful may be partly or entirely imaginative. Scandal tales, fake histories, and tales of travels or voyages were almost never entirely true or false, and often were a mixture of truth, rumor, embellishment, and fiction. Defining the “Novel” · 9

To understand these texts as their original readers might have, we need to take them as they are without trying to sort out which bits might be true and which not. Many critics studying early fiction have created definitions of “novel” to indicate the type of long narrative fiction that they are trying to distinguish from other types of fiction in the early eighteenth century. Richetti identifies “psychological participation” of the reader with the characters as “the defining quality of the specifically modern novel,” and Ioan Williams points to “concrete detail” as a distinguishing characteristic.15 These definitions, relying on just a single determinant, are very narrow—and both are highly subjective. Davis and Hunter employ quite different criteria that distinguish the novel from romance and other fiction types. Davis points to setting, morality, and realism as key to separating novels from romances, while Hunter argues that the novel has a sense of contemporaneity, credibility, individualism, coherence, and innovation, among other qualities.16 By having so many characteristics for defining a “novel,” they eliminate many texts that might have different narrative features. Hunter, for example, wants to see the “novel” as a type of fiction that is original and new, so he includes this as part of his definition. Rather than describing “novel” as a general category, he is really defining the type of fiction that he sees as a precursor to Pamela and Tom Jones. The advantage of such definitions is that they establish the terms in which a particular critic understands fiction. We can tell from Hunter’s definition that he is not counting works like Alexander Smith’s The History of the Lives of the Most Noted Highway-men, Foot-pads, House-breakers, Shop-lifts, and Cheats (1714) as a novel, however fictional it might be. Many critics mean in practice a much narrower type of fiction than they acknowledge: Terry Eagleton, for example, defines “novel” as “a piece of prose fiction of a reasonable length,” but in fact his focus on Defoe, Swift, Richardson, Fielding, and other canonical authors demonstrates that he is really only looking at one very specific type of “prose fiction.”17 Modern ideas about the form of the “novel” have dominated discussions of early fiction. Richetti complains that “the search for the exact biological history of the novel implies the existence of a Platonic ideal novel in which all prose fictions participate and towards which, with varying degrees of success, they all aspire.”18 Such a “Platonic” form, Richetti argues, does not exist, and a critical method that relies on it does not account for the formal, stylistic, and thematic complexities of novels as actually written. Yet this is how many studies of fiction seem to view novels. The search for the “ori10 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

gins” or “beginnings” of the novel indicates an a priori assumption that a novel is an identifiable entity that has a specific starting point. This type of thinking leads us, in its most extreme manifestations, to comments such as Hunter’s that “the most fundamental issue has to do with what three generations (and more) of readers did while they were waiting for the novel to rise.”19 Readers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were not waiting for someone to discover, invent, or otherwise create the “novel,” nor did they seem to feel that there was a lack of reading material for entertainment or instruction. We may have trouble imagining a literary world that did not feature novels, but no one at the time seemed to have felt any deficiency. As certain novelists have become fundamental to the canon of English literature, they have influenced how we perceive early fiction as leading toward the longer narrative popular in the nineteenth century. Canonization is complex and highly disputed, but the main factors influencing the canonization of Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding are formal, national, and ideological. Formal issues have to do with the type of fiction written by these authors being more similar to later dominant fiction forms than the works of other authors (Haywood, Rowe, Scudéry, etc.). National issues pertain to the creation of a particularly English narrative form, distinct from simultaneous literary trends on the continent. David Damrosch comments that “it seemed perfectly reasonable for Ian Watt to call his study of several British novelists The Rise of the Novel rather than The Rise of the British Novel,” because when Watt’s book came out in 1957 “it was generally accepted that the British novel had a distinctive national history that could well be studied— or could even best be studied—on its own, independent of developments in France or Spain.”20 While more recent historians, including McKeon and Ray, have added continental authors to their search for the origins of narrative fiction, the end point of their studies is still the British novel. Political and social issues, similarly, long kept women writers out of histories of fiction, but now mandate their inclusion. Reevaluations of current literature and social structures are reflected in revisions of literary history. For the first time, a comprehensive study of early fiction is both desirable and possible. Modern scholarship is increasingly open to rediscovering popular works by “minor” authors, and literary historians have become more interested in studies of the reading public and book history rather than just a few examples of literature of a high artistic caliber.21 With electronic databases, a task that would have meant traveling between libraries even a decade ago is now possible from a single location. Even in a comprehensive Defining the “Novel” · 11

study, however, some of the same questions of scope and method need to be answered—and for fiction, unfortunately, there are few clear solutions for determining what should count and how it should be approached.

Methodologies for the Literary History of Fiction The lack of exact definitions for early fiction complicates the methodological problems in writing literary history more generally. McKeon begins his Origins of the English Novel by observing, “Modern studies of seventeenthcentury prose fiction used to suffer from a particularly virulent form of taxonomic disease” (25). He is referring to the fact that many studies of the novel take a “divide and conquer” approach, sorting the mass of prose fiction into genres, subgenres, types, and modes, irrespective of terms and categories used in the period. By carving fiction into manageable groups, the literary historian can then analyze how these groups changed over time. Salzman does this in order to discuss the wide variety of fictional forms in the seventeenth century, and for the purposes of his survey it works very well. Virtually all histories of early novels have followed a developmental model, assuming that fiction was progressing from some primitive state toward a more advanced, complex form that more closely resembles modern novels, specifically in its use of individualized characters and verisimilitude. This shift is generally supposed to have occurred between 1650 and 1750. Certainly, the fiction of 1650 is different from the fiction of 1750; but whether the change is a progression is far less clear. The historical contexts of fiction can help determine the nature of the change, and perhaps some of its causes. A full critical and historical survey is impossible here, but the following discussion will explain how we have arrived at some of the conclusions mentioned near the beginning of this chapter. Critics began to abandon the “great man” version of the history of early fiction in the 1980s with the work of Salzman, McKeon, Hunter, Ros Ballaster, and others. While earlier historians had always been aware that there was a great deal of fiction in the early eighteenth century besides that of Defoe, the “minor” works remained relatively unexplored. Using new ideological and critical perspectives, these literary historians applied feminist, Marxist, Foucaultian, New Historicist, and cultural materialist approaches to the history of fiction. The most lasting and influential of these has been feminist literary history, which began by using a “great woman” approach. Jane Spencer’s The Rise of the Woman Novelist covers more writers than Watt, 12 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

but starts from a similar premise that “eighteenth-century England witnessed two remarkable and interconnected literary events: the emergence of the novel and the establishment of the professional woman writer.”22 Ballaster focuses chiefly on Behn, Manley, and Haywood as a counter to Watt’s triumvirate.23 Spencer, Janet Todd, and Dale Spender treat women writers separately from male writers, without adding them into established views of literary history.24 Gradually, even historians and critics focusing on gender issues integrated male and female writers to provide a more nuanced picture of early fiction that shows the person of the author in relation to the text. Mona Scheuermann and Bradford K. Mudge both combine discussions of women writers with the representation of women in texts by male authors.25 Neither Scheuermann nor Mudge is trying to write a literary history, but both are creating chronological, historical arguments about how the relationship of women to fiction changed during the eighteenth century. Other interpretive angles similarly took advantage of fiction formerly omitted by literary historians. McKeon uses Marx’s idea of “simple abstraction,” to argue that “the origins of the English novel occur at the end point of a long history of ‘novelistic usage.’”26 McKeon examines seventeenthcentury spiritual narratives and didactic works to determine what might have led to the novel in the eighteenth century. Foucaultian analyses, such as those by Davis and John Bender, highlight the relationship between literature and hierarchies of power more broadly: as Davis argues, “The novel is seen as a discourse for reinforcing particular ideologies, and its coming into being must be seen as tied to particular power relations.”27 Ray takes a more strictly New Historicist approach by arguing that “the novel’s promotion as a representational vehicle is linked to the increasing conviction that both individual and social truths are rooted in continually evolving codes of behavior, contexts of belief, religious biases, and ethical assumptions.”28 Hunter also looks at contexts of fiction, claiming to “demonstrate the importance of the ‘minor’ and the ‘ordinary,’ not only in assessing the directions of everyday life but in deciding the total shape of culture and its characteristic institutions.”29 To this end, he examines previously neglected texts such as John Dunton’s periodical the Athenian Mercury (1691–1696) alongside the more famous works of Defoe and Fielding. This method is extended in cultural materialist studies such as Steve Mentz’s Romance for Sale, which argues that scholars focused on the novel have ignored Elizabethan prose romances, and Warner’s argument that “before the rise of the novel (as a literary form), novel reading emerged as a mode of enterDefining the “Novel” · 13

tainment.”30 Popular or noncanonical fiction has been incorporated into literary histories of the novel, but only so far as it helps explain the “rise” of prose fiction. The application of modern ideologies (feminism, Marxist, materialism, etc.) to eighteenth-century literature is symptomatic of a broader practice of selective chronology. This leads to histories that are rigidly accurate about chronology in certain contexts, and dangerously lax about exact dates in others. For example, McKeon discusses the influence of the first English translation of Lazarillo de Tormes (1586) on Thomas Nashe’s The Unfortunate Traveller (1594), which was published just eight years later. His chronology has to be very exact for this argument to make sense, and it does. In the next paragraph, however, he refers to the direct influence of Lazarillo on “criminal biographies that flourished after the Restoration” and “the contemporaneous ‘apparition narratives’ of Glanvill, Defoe, and the rest.”31 Glanvill and Defoe are hardly “contemporaneous,” either with each other or with Lazarillo or Nashe: Glanvill died eight years before Defoe’s first published work appeared, and more than twenty years before Defoe published anything on apparitions.32 Warner leaps from Behn in the 1680s to Manley in 1709 without anything in between, and Margaret Anne Doody skips more than eight hundred years in her survey of fiction from the ancient world to the present.33 Such blank spots are fine, and perhaps even desirable, for particular interpretive projects, but they drastically alter our sense of chronology when they are part of a survey attempting to explain the fiction of a specific period. The final issue with negotiating the distance between us and the early eighteenth century is the fact that most critics look back at early fiction from a literary world in which the novel is the dominant form of literature. Williams comments that “the enormous success of the novel in the nineteenth century has been the primary factor which has distorted our view of its history during the whole period from 1600, making it difficult not to accept the application of crude evolutionary terms.”34 Richetti similarly pointed out that “the history of the novel has thus been handed down to us as . . . the development or evolution of a superior literary instrument.”35 This evaluative methodology for studying fiction assumes that the works currently being written are aesthetically and intellectually superior to previous fiction. This is inherent in developmental histories of fiction, from McKillop and Watt to McKeon and Hunter. My primary objective is to reconstruct certain contexts of the original 14 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

publication milieu of early fiction—in this case, the economic and social contexts of the fiction market—in order to understand better what the original readers might have thought of these texts, and what their expectations for fiction were. I am using facts about print culture and book history to help understand fiction as an early eighteenth-century reader might have, from the title to the back-page advertisements. Of the nearly five hundred works of fiction printed in English in Britain from 1690 to 1730, fully half were either reprints or translations of foreign fiction. These have mostly been excluded from literary histories, which have almost unanimously focused on new fiction originally written in English.36 More than a third of all the works of fiction were anonymous and have largely been left out of literary histories. My object is to investigate literature viewed through a strictly defined and factually based historical context. Naturally, as with any method, historical contextualization in the way I am using it here has its restrictions. It focuses on texts rather than authors, so certain works that are prominent in other literary histories and criticism receive relatively little attention here. My aim is not to provide lengthy interpretations of Oroonoko and Moll Flanders. I am devoting more space to works that I deem more successful based on reprints and reissues, and some of these are works few people have read in the last three centuries. I focus in detail on the print culture and the publishing market, rather than other possible contexts. The broader literary context of other genres of writing, for example, is not treated here. Finally, sticking only to history supported by demonstrable facts means that certain contexts cannot be studied. Most of the anonymous works will probably remain unattributed. We have virtually no information about the responses of original readers to texts from this period, and much of what can be said about the daily life of a fiction writer is purely conjectural. Despite these limitations, I believe that this method will yield results that will help us to understand the texts in a historical context (from the perspectives of their original readers) as well as avoid some of the methodological slants of other histories of fiction. Modern writers read older books in addition to those written by their immediate predecessors, and eighteenth-century writers did the same. We get a warped picture of the potential literary influences on certain writers if we only read new fiction. Modern criticism distinguishes between new fiction and translations, abridgments, and reprints, but an eighteenth-century reader would not necessarily have categorized texts in the same way. In fact, the terms and Defining the “Novel” · 15

labels used for fiction in the period show us that writers thought of fiction subgenres very differently from what we might expect.

Novels, Romances, and Histories: Eighteenth-Century Concepts of Fiction One might suppose that a possible solution to the problem of defining “novel” or even “fiction” is to turn to the terms actually used in the early eighteenth century. What do writers and printers of fiction in this period think they are doing when they publish what we call a “novel”? How do they describe fiction? With the exception of a few famous prefaces cited repeatedly, modern critics have paid little attention to what contemporary writers had to say about fiction genres. Joseph F. Bartolomeo has done a thorough job of analyzing the significant discussions of genre in the eighteenth century, but no one has systematically studied individual references and short comments.37 I have elsewhere argued that the nomenclature on title pages of new fiction throughout the period 1660–1800 tends to reflect trends over time rather than the content of particular works.38 An analysis of the uses of genre terms in titles, prefaces, and advertisements will show what writers of this period seemed to think they were doing—and, perhaps, what readers might expect from texts based on their genre labels. Title- Page Nomenclature

In the eighteenth century, terms relate to identifiable trends: “secret history” is popular in the 1720s, and “romance” becomes popular in the 1790s with the increasing use of the term on Gothic texts. But why might some labels be more popular than others? Specifically, how can we account for certain tendencies in the period 1690–1730, and what can we tell from the types of fiction on which particular terms are used? Contrary to expectation, “novel” does not become the most frequent label on new works of long fiction until the last quarter of the eighteenth century. An analysis of title-page labels and the types of fiction they indicate shows that the terms, while nebulous and frequently used in combination, do seem to have some definite meanings even as early as 1690. A reader might not be able to define “memoirs,” but nevertheless could know from the label that this was not epistolary fiction or a series of short tales. A statistical breakdown of the terms on title pages shows that “novel” and 16 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

Table 1. Genre labels on fiction title pages, 1690–1730 GENRE LABEL

NUMBER OF TITLES

PERCENTAGE OF WHOLE

Novel History No Label Other Letters Memoirs Secret History Tale Story True History Romance

136 130 85 69 41 39 38 23 12 12 7

29% 28% 18% 15% 9% 8% 8% 5% 3% 3% 1%

Total Titles

468

Note: These figures include new fiction in English, first instances of a new translation of foreign fiction, first appearances of a new abridgment, and first instances of a reprint of an older text. No distinction is made here between singular and plural forms of these terms. Since some title pages include more than one genre label, the percentages given here add up to more than 100. They do not include works of fiction published in 1730 (only through 1729).

“history” each appear on more than a quarter of works of fiction printed in this period. Table 1 depicts some of the most common genre labels and the frequency of their appearance. Certain labels that we think of as having been very common were not used much on title pages. “Romance” appears only seven times in forty years. “Story” and “true history” occur on just twelve title pages apiece. The term “history” is surprisingly popular, considering that (to a modern reader, at least) it does not necessarily denote fiction. Similarly, the frequency of “novel” is startling, since the period at issue here begins fifty years before the novel is generally assumed to have become the dominant form. Clearly, the labels for fiction are inconsistent and do not necessarily indicate that the work inside is fictional at all. However, some patterns are discernible in the ways these terms were applied, and they show that genre labels in this period indicate form rather than content. The most easily distinguishable type of fiction is epistolary fiction, which is often, though by no means always, labeled as being in “letters.” Some of these, such as The Ingenious and Diverting Letters of the Lady———’s Travels into Spain (1691), Thomas Brown’s Letters from the Dead to the Living (1702), and Bath-Intrigues: In Four Letters to a Friend in London (1725) inDefining the “Novel” · 17

clude letters from a single fictional writer, and differ little from other prose forms in the way they relate past events. Many epistolary fictions, however, take advantage of the letter form to include different fictional speakers, often with various perspectives on the same events. The Perfidious P——, Being Letters from a Nobleman to Two Ladies (1702), for example, contains letters to and from all three main characters describing the hero Corydon’s pursuit of Clarinda and eventual preference for her friend Lucina. A few works combine these approaches by having a main storyline told in a single letter, with additional letters from other characters inserted into the story. This is the case with The Jilted Bridegroom: Or, London Coquet . . . with several Letters that past between them (1706). Some of the fictions that have “letter” on the title page include letters within the framework of a first- or third-person prose narrative. Unlike other genre labels, which may indicate a wide variety of types of fiction, “letters” always specifies that there is at least one letter in the text, and often the whole work is epistolary. While letters are a very distinct formal category, more various short fictions may be labeled as “stories” or “tales.” As opposed to letters, which are told from the perspective of a fictional letter-writer, tales and stories are frequently told from a third-person perspective. Examples of these include Court Tales (1717) and Lovers Tales: In several New Surprising and Diverting Stories (1722). In many cases, “stories” and “tales” indicate that the works are ostensibly traditional narratives from a foreign culture, as is the case for Antoine Galland’s Arabian Nights Entertainments: Consisting of 1001 Stories (1706) and François Pétis de la Croix’s Turkish Tales (1708). Unlike other genre labels, “stories” and “tales” have a different meaning when they are in the singular rather than the plural. A “story” or a “tale” is not a short fiction, but may be a longer single narrative, such as Swift’s A Tale of a Tub (1704). The singular forms of these labels are much less frequently used than the plural. Among longer works, “secret history” indicates that the reader is meant to see an ulterior meaning behind the fiction. These are frequently anecdotal even if they have a continuous narrative plotline. Rebecca Bullard has defined the form as “a revisionist mode of historiography” because of its attempts to rewrite factual events and the lives of real people, but this definition does not account for the two distinct uses of the term.39 In the late seventeenth century, many “secret histories” are fictional or unverifiable narratives about scandals among real-life nobility, as is the case with The Cabinet Open’d, or The Secret History of the Amours of Madam de Main18 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

tenon, with the French King (1690) or The Royal Mistresses of France; Or, The Secret History of the Amours of all the French Kings (1695). The later “secret histories” from the early eighteenth century, however, are frequently roman à clef, and the label indicates the reader should look for the parallel between the action described and events from real life. In this version of the form, the events are perhaps accurate but the characters are fictional covers for real people. Examples of this include The Secret History of Queen Zarah (1705) and The Secret History of the October Club (1711), both of which describe oppositional political intrigues. There are still secret histories in the eighteenth century that are scandal chronicles along the earlier model, such as Alexander Smith’s The Secret History of the Lives of the Most Celebrated Beauties, Ladies of Quality, and Jilts (1715), but the label clearly had two different meanings. An “allegory,” like a “secret history,” had a hidden meaning that related to real life. Unlike secret histories, which described an event that had already occurred, an allegory was meant to be instructive for the reader in shaping future action. “Allegory” is very rarely used: the most famous example of a fiction that we might call an allegory, Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678), has no genre label at all but is “Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream.” The title pages of reprints of both Keach’s The Progress of Sin (1700) and The Travels of True Godliness (1701) say they are “In an apt and Pleasant Allegory,” but no other works of fiction in the period 1690–1730 have “allegory” on the title page. There are many texts we might categorize as allegories, but the term was not common as a literary descriptor. Most works of fiction in this period are long prose narratives with consistent first- or third-person perspectives, labeled as “novel,” “romance,” “history,” or “memoirs.” There are no discernible patterns among the usage of these terms on title pages, though “novel” and “history” are certainly the most common, each appearing on nearly 30 percent of title pages of fiction. “Memoirs” is used on thirty-nine title pages, approximately the same number as “secret history” and “letters.” “Memoirs” frequently indicates that the work is told from a first-person perspective, or at least focuses on the life of a single character, as is the case with The Memoires of the Dutchess Mazarine (rep. 1690). However, many works with the label “memoirs,” including Memoirs of the Court of France (1692) and Memoirs of the Court of Spain (1692), are indistinguishable from “histories” or “novels.” Similarly, there is no consistent difference between works with the labels “novel” and “history”: both can refer to a fiction that is either very short (twenty-four Defining the “Novel” · 19

pages) or very long (multiple volumes), set in the distant past or ostensibly in the present, comparatively realistic or obviously fantastical.40 Looking solely at title-page nomenclature, we can conclude that the terms “letters,” “stories,” “tales,” “secret history,” and “allegory” referred to identifiable and distinct formal characteristics, but that “novel,” “romance,” “history,” and “memoirs” might be used interchangeably. Prefatory Comments on Genre

The comments on genre found in prefaces and dedications of fiction in this period do not, for the most part, contradict the labels found on the title pages. Approximately one-fifth of the fiction has comments that pertain to genre. These can be divided into four categories: (1) those that claim the work is true; (2) those that disparage romances, novels, or tales for being untrue; (3) those that clarify the term on the title page, add more labels, or compare different types of fiction; and (4) those that claim the work has a moral or allegorical purpose. From this we can see that writers and publishers do seem to have had particular ideas about what genre terms meant and how fiction was subdivided into different types, even if these distinctions were inconsistently applied. By far the largest of these categories are the prefatory comments that insist that the work is true. Of the ninety-eight titles from the period 1690– 1730 that have prefatory comments on genre, thirty-six make an explicit claim to truth in the preface or the introduction. Fifteen have implicit claims to truth, such as the addition of a genre term generally associated with factual writing (“account” or “true history,” for example), or an assertion that the narrator was an “eye-witness” to the events described.41 Even among the explicit claims to truth, there is a wide degree of difference in the force of these assertions. Some have straightforward declarations of factuality: the speaker of the prefatory poem added to the 1696 edition of Bunyan’s The Holy War, for example, declares, “what is here in view, / Of mine own knowledge, I dare say is true” (sig. A4v). Similarly, the preface to the first volume of Robinson Crusoe states, “The Editor believes the thing to be a just History of Fact; neither is there any Appearance of Fiction in it.”42 Such forthright statements are far from the norm, however, and most claims to truth are more nuanced. One of the most frequent contra-fiction devices is the assertion that the source for the story was an actual person or an ancient manuscript. Behn’s 20 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

dedication to Oroonoko, for example, claims that it is a “true Story” and that Behn knew the title character personally.43 The History of the Proceedings of the Mandarins and Proatins of the Britomartian Empire (1713) describes its origins in an “Old Manuscript” newly discovered, and The Dumb Philosopher (1719) was supposedly transcribed from “a large Bundle of Papers; most of which were writ in Short-hand, and very ill digested.”44 In these cases, the reader must decide how far to trust a firsthand witness or mysterious manuscript. Another device that links the fictional work to the supposed truth behind it is the claim that a story is based on real events or people, but has been embellished or changed to be more suitable for entertainment. This is the case for Scarron Incens’d (1694), which asserts that “The Subject of my Story is a Real Adventure that lately befell Madam de Maintenon,” combining a recognizable person with an assertion of truth.45 Many of these “secret” stories about real people were impossible to verify, and writers took advantage of this to hint at their truth. Edward Wood does this in the preface to his translation of The Life of Donna Rosina (1700), in which he claims that “The Intrigues inserted, are not altogether Imaginary, but such as really happen’d in some Eminent Cities of Spain.” He then challenges unbelieving readers to visit Spain to see for themselves.46 A skeptical reader could not demonstrate positively that the events described are not true. Comparisons between different genre labels used for fiction can be found in the prefaces that clarify terms used on the title page, add more labels, or contrast the title-page labels with other genres. In the absence of clear, consistent definitions for these terms, the writers of these prefaces compare the work inside with other works of varying degrees of factuality or verisimilitude. This is the strategy taken in two of the most famous prefaces from the period: the addresses to the reader of Incognita (1692) and The Secret History of Queen Zarah (1705). In the preface to Incognita, William Congreve writes, “Novels are of a more familiar nature; Come near us, and represent to us Intrigues in practice, delight us with Accidents and odd Events, but not such as are wholly unusual or unprecedented.” The contrast with romance is clear: “Romances give more of Wonder, Novels more Delight” (sig. A5v–A6r). Congreve’s distinction between novels as realistic and romances as fantastical has been frequently repeated in modern criticism as though it were commonplace, but his views are relatively unusual—and, as Kristiaan P. Aercke points out, they do not accurately describe Incognita.47 The preface to Queen Zarah is more prescriptive, declaring, “He that writes a True History ought to place the Accidents as they Naturally happen,” and Defining the “Novel” · 21

that “’tis necessary the Miracle shou’d be feisable, to make an Impression in the Brain of Reasonable Persons.”48 Here, too, the distinction is between “True History” and a “Romantic History” based on the verisimilitude of the work. A similar definition of “novels” as “Imitations of History”—not factually true, but plausible—is found in the preface to a collection of novels that also includes a translation of Le Huet’s The History of Romances.49 While the distinctions between romance, history, and novel have attracted the most critical attention, some prefaces differentiate between other fictional genres. After declaring the truth of his “account,” the narrator of An Account of Some Remarkable Passages in the Life of a Private Gentleman (1708) distinguishes between “Histories upon Record,” such as his own, and “idle Stories of Deceivers” (sig. A4v). Here, “account” and “history” indicate factual (or pseudo-factual) genres, in direct opposition to fictional “stories.” Ambrose Philips, the translator of The Thousand and One Days (1714–15), describes the work as “feigned Histories” that are “very Romantick and Surprizing” (vol. 1, sig. A5v). The “tales” are fictional and do not pretend to factual accuracy. “Memoirs” often connotes a factual work. The preface to Memoirs of a Cavalier (1720) explains that “the Actions here mentioned have a sufficient Sanction from all the Histories of the Times to which they relate.”50 This invites the reader to verify the fiction by comparing it to real works of history. The use of “sanction” here indicates a high valuation for factual works: the writer of the preface apparently considers Memoirs of a Cavalier more worthwhile because it fits with historical accounts than it would be as an imaginative work unconnected to real life. Some prefaces simply add more terms, rather than clarifying what is already on the title page. A few of these add terms with factual connotations, often as part of a declaration of truth. This is the case with The Cabinet Open’d (1690), which claims to be “history” and “memoirs” in addition to the label “secret history” on the title page, and The French King Proved a Bastard (1691), which has no genre terms on the title page, but inside it is referred to as a “treatise,” a “history,” and a “narrative.” Others give the reader additional information about how to understand the work, as with Roger L’Estrange’s translation of Quevedo’s Visions, which explains that “it is a Satyr, that taxes Corruption of Manners, in all sorts and degrees of People, without reflecting upon particular States or Persons.”51 Similarly, the preface to Iter Lunare (1703) claims it is “serious Philosophical Reflections,” not a story (sig. A3r). In these cases, the additional terms do not contradict the

22 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

title pages, but qualify their labels to explain what exactly the reader might expect to find. One of the most interesting rhetorical strategies in comparing genre terms is the use of famous works of fiction as examples of a nonfactual mode of writing. In particular, the works commonly attributed to Defoe appear repeatedly in prefatory comments after 1719. The author of The Highland Rogue (1723) goes further than most in declaring, “It is not a romantic Tale that the Reader is here presented with, but a real History: Not the Adventures of a Robinson Crusoe, a Colonel Jack, or a Moll Flanders, but the Actions of the Highland Rogue.”52 A very similar declaration appears in the preface of Peter Longueville’s The Hermit (1727), which discusses how “Truth and Fiction have, of late, been so promiscuously blended,” and that “If Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders, and Colonel Jack have had their Admirers among the lower Rank of Readers; it is as certain, that that the Morality in Masquerade, which may be discovered, in the Travels of Lemuel Gulliver, has been an equal Entertainment to the superior Class of Mankind.”53 These remarks set up a difference between works that many people know to be fictional (like Crusoe, Moll Flanders, and Colonel Jacque) and works that are ostensibly real (The Highland Rogue and The Hermit, in these cases). Nothing in the title pages or the works themselves sets these latter two apart from the other fictions: Crusoe, Moll, and Jacque all have declarations of truth in their prefaces and are allegedly written by the narrators themselves. The grouping of these three works in this way is odd considering that at this time only Crusoe had been attributed to Defoe.54 The writers of these prefaces apparently connected them together on grounds other than authorship. While many works try to achieve credibility by claiming to be true, others acknowledge the fictional nature of their content but insist that the allegorical or moral purpose of the work makes its truth irrelevant. As the author of a spurious continuation of The Pilgrim’s Progress writes, such stories have the merit of “representing to the Mind things that command our most serious Thoughts and Attentions, and work more upon the Minds of Men, than if delivered in plainer terms.”55 Some people who would not read sermons might read tales, even those with a moral purpose—and such works of fiction could illustrate precepts more vividly than didactic prose might. Some tales were not allegorical but were accompanied with didactic explanations of their main points. Philip Ayres refers to this in the preface

Defining the “Novel” · 23

to The Revengeful Mistress (1696), which states that his “tale should also be accompanied with such good Advice, as might make it of Profit, as well as Pleasure.”56 Morals make explicit the real-life applications of the story. For readers scrupulous about fiction, Keach points out that “True Godliness is here presented in an Allegory, since the Holy Scriptures abound with them, and so fully justifie our practice herein.”57 This was a legitimate concern: Defoe responds in Serious Reflections to such criticism of fiction as lies.58 A number of prefaces argue explicitly that a moral point is more important to fiction than a pretense of truth. The preface to Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719), for example, states that “The just Application of every Incident, the religious and useful Inferences drawn from every Part, are so many Testimonies to the good Design of making it publick, and must legitimate all the Part that may be call’d Invention, or Parable in the Story.”59 The term “parable” indicates the religious point. This is not a roman à clef with an ulterior meaning, but a work with a moral message to be extracted by the reader. The main issue at stake in these prefatory comments about genre is the relative truth and worth of the fiction. While authors and readers were clearly comfortable enough with the concept of fiction that they were writing and reading it, there is some anxiety about fiction as either a worthless, trivial mode of writing, or as promoting untruths and misinformation. Popular fiction was certainly not relegated to a nonliterary realm governed by hacks and unsophisticated readers, as was thought by some early twentiethcentury critics.60 However, the frequency with which writers of prefaces try to validate fiction with claims to truth indicates that they thought readers might dismiss their work on the basis of its fictionality. These combinations of factual stories with fictional embellishments, or claims about the truth of an unverifiable story, make determining what counts as fiction a very difficult task. Many critics have adopted modern standards for distinguishing fact from fiction, since writers in the eighteenth century do not appear to have been as stringent as we are about keeping them separate. This has led to a more selective view of “novels” than would otherwise be possible: if we look only at works that are as fully imaginative as we might expect from a modern novel, then we would have to eliminate many eighteenth-century fictions that mingle fact with fantasy. Critics who base their analyses on only a few extended discussions of genre in prefaces (most frequently, though not in Bartolomeo’s case, Incognita and Queen Zarah) have the mistaken impression that the prefatory com24 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

ments on fiction of this period are usually unreliable and often completely incorrect.61 In fact, eighteenth-century writers of prefaces used different terms to indicate fact and fiction (albeit inconsistently), and they thought the difference was important enough to warrant discussion. Genre Terms in Advertisements

Title pages and prefaces tell us about the genre terms authors and booksellers used to describe fiction, but advertisements show us how they might have categorized it. A bookseller would likely use genre labels that would help sell books, with specific meanings to attract potential readers. What genre terms are used for fiction in advertisements? How are works of fiction categorized when advertised alongside factual books? The next chapter will provide a fuller survey of the rhetoric and information on advertisements for fiction, but here I will analyze some ways genre terms were used to communicate the fictional nature of a book to potential buyers and readers. Although newspaper advertisements typically repeat whatever is on the title page, some do provide clues that show how certain genre labels might have been understood. At least two booksellers in the early eighteenth century, Richard Wellington and William Davis, advertise that they have many novels available for a reader interested in fiction. Davis’s ad for Love in a Fury, or Jealousy Expos’d (1705) in the Post Man and the Historical Account comments that at Davis’s shop, “Gentlemen and Ladies may be furnish’d with all sorts of Novels and Plays.”62 Wellington’s advertisements for play texts include a notice about his sale of fiction.63 Both of these advertising strategies show that Davis and Wellington are targeting readers looking for fiction, and they thought the same readers who read plays might be interested in novels. Other genre labels used in ads do not seem to have been specifically indicating fiction. One ad listing “Histories and Voyages lately printed for Abel Roper” includes Memoirs of the Court of France along with ten other works that are factual, as far as we know.64 Here the terms do not seem to have specific meanings: presumably Memoirs of the Court of France falls under the category of “Histories” rather than “Voyages,” but neither the ad nor the title indicates its fictionality, or any difference between “Histories” and “Memoirs” as types of prose. We can see that people writing advertisements were even less careful about distinguishing between types of fiction, or fiction and fact, than writers of prefaces were. They group works according to form or subject Defining the “Novel” · 25

matter rather than relative truth. The assumption guiding the organization of texts in these ads is that a reader who might enjoy The Pilgrim’s Progress would also perhaps be interested in other types of “divinity” or religious works, but not necessarily a different type of fiction like Oroonoko or Memoirs of the Court of France. This is a completely different way of categorizing books than what modern critics writing about the early eighteenth century generally use. In general, authors and booksellers do not seem to be very concerned about what exactly distinguishes a “novel” from other forms of prose fiction. Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary (1755) defines it simply as “A small tale, generally of love.”65 This is a plausible definition, though perhaps overly limited even for Johnson’s time. Just twenty out of 269 new works of fiction in the 1750s have the label “novel” on the title page, and few of these are under 100 pages.66 In the late seventeenth century, most of the texts labeled as “novels” do seem to be “small” and “of love,” in Johnson’s terms, but so do a lot of other fictions that have different genre labels. Lisarda: Or, The Travels of Love and Jealousy, A Novel (1690) is 97 pages in octavo and would certainly fit Johnson’s definition—but so would The Amours of Philantus and Bellamond (1690), which is 130 pages in duodecimo and is labeled a “history.” The fiction under each term is too varied and the categories overlap too much for us to derive definitions. The use of many of these terms for both fact and fiction means that modern critics cannot take title-page labels to indicate fiction, but need to examine the texts themselves. In some cases, including famous works such as The Apparition of One Mrs. Veal, we may never know exactly how much is factual and how much is imaginative.67 In what follows I aim to answer the following two questions: what types of fiction were published and read from 1690 to 1730, and how does fiction change over this time period? Many critics—most notably Watt, Richetti, McKeon, Hunter, and Warner—have asked these questions, seeking the origins of a fictional movement that culminated in Robinson Crusoe or Pamela. They have developed an array of theories about the differences between romances and novels, between fact and fiction, between Behn and Defoe. They have mostly sought development, progress, and evolution in the texts of canonical authors. This study will take a different approach by focusing on texts, booksellers, and readers rather than authors. My object here is not to study the five “early masters,” but instead to look at the fiction that people were actually buying, selling, translating, reprinting, and read26 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

ing. As I have tried to demonstrate, the language used to describe works of fiction and the comments made about factual and fictional writing in the eighteenth century is far more complex and nuanced than most modern critics have acknowledged. Writers of fiction were conscious of what they were doing, and what their readers might want, and to base our ideas about early fiction on the work of just a few authors seriously misrepresents the wide range of fiction available in the period. To understand the types of fiction that were popular, however, we first have to look at the fiction market to determine what works of fiction were available to different segments of the population, and how booksellers might influence the work produced by authors.

Defining the “Novel” · 27

2 Fiction and the Book Trade

s The term “popular,” as applied by Richetti and others to the fiction of this period, has come to mean fiction that is of low literary quality, shoddily manufactured, and widely available. In fact, these three characteristics have little to do with each other. As I shall show here, fewer than 20 percent of families could afford to buy fiction, and even allowing for multiple readers of each copy, the number of people reading supposedly “popular” fiction was so small the term does not really apply. For most readers, fiction would have meant chapbooks, many of which originate in medieval tales or the Elizabethan romances of Thomas Deloney and Robert Greene. While these short fictions have gained some scholarly attention from Margaret Spufford and book historians like James Raven, they are usually considered as an isolated part of the print market.1 Booksellers sold such relatively inexpensive works to an audience that could not afford more expensive books, but they also sold them to wealthier readers who had access to other types of fiction. How exactly do booksellers influence the production of fiction, and how do the economic considerations of the print industry affect the availability of fiction and the types of works printed? Booksellers had considerably more control over what was produced than authors did, but they were subject to the demands of their customers.

Economics of Print Historians of fiction, including Hunter and McKeon, mention the economics of the print culture world, but their comments are based on only a 28

few examples and are not the main focus of their histories.2 Literary critics are mostly not concerned with specifics about book prices and the methods used to distribute books to prospective readers. In fact, high book prices precluded most potential readers from buying fiction, and the wider distribution of books through serial publication or circulating libraries was mostly unavailable for fiction prior to 1740. With the exception of chapbooks, most fiction was written for and marketed to an elite audience, regardless of its literary quality or content. Costs to the Bookseller / Publisher

The manufacture of books in the early eighteenth century was expensive. Materials were costly, even minimal equipment required substantial investment, and the process was complicated enough to call for specialized workers. The amount of money paid to authors for the right to print a text was almost always small compared to the production costs, and will be discussed in greater detail in the next chapter. While some types of books, such as almanacs, Bibles, instructional works, and learned texts of law or science, had an almost guaranteed market, fiction sales were highly unpredictable. An examination of the costs of printing different sizes and formats of books will help to explain the advantages of certain formats for fiction, and what might convince a bookseller to invest in a longer work. The basic material costs for producing a book can be divided into consumable materials, like paper and ink, and reusable equipment, such as the type and presses. Raven notes that through the 1730s most paper was imported, increasing its cost.3 This was starting to change: as D. C. Coleman points out, the period 1670–1720 experienced “a major expansion in English paper production,” and the number of domestic mills grew from 100 in the 1690s to 200 in 1711.4 Many of these mills, however, produced coarse paper unsuitable for printing. The cost of paper depended on its quality. David Foxon estimates that in the early eighteenth century, “Dutch printing royal is priced between 28s and 32s 6d” per ream of five hundred sheets, while lesser-quality paper cost approximately “£1 a ream for the writing demy and 10s for the pott.”5 Each sheet was folded, gathered, and cut into book-size pages after printing: four for a folio, eight for a quarto, sixteen for an octavo, twenty-four for a duodecimo. Graham Pollard has demonstrated that the size of a sheet of paper grew over the course of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.6 This was both to make printing more efFiction and the Book Trade · 29

ficient and also to avoid stamp taxes on sheets of particular sizes, and it increased the amount of text that could fit on each page. The cost of the consumable materials meant that booksellers highlighted the quality of the material product alongside the work’s content: an advertisement for Hanover Tales (1715), for example, states that it is “in two neat Pocket-Volumes, adorn’d with Cuts, on Superfine Paper.”7 The emphasis on the book as a physical object rather than a repository of ideas reflects both the high cost of the materials used to make it and a view of books as commodities. The length of a work of fiction therefore was significant in determining its production cost. Looking at the works that appear in literary histories, one might assume that fiction in the late seventeenth century tended to be short novellas, and that the long continuous narrative that resembles the modern novel was an eighteenth-century invention. This is not entirely true. Table 2 shows how many works of fiction of each length were published in each decade. The average length of books does not increase over this period. There is a slight shift from the 1690s to the eighteenth century, in which more books in the 1690s were between 121 and 200 pages than were over 200 pages, while in the eighteenth century as much as 46 percent of the fiction published was over 200 pages. There is a small increase in pamphlet-length fictions (25–64 pages) in the 1720s, but there is no dramatic increase in long works. The expense of paper meant that the cost of materials varied widely for works of different lengths. The short chapbooks were printed very cheaply, while the longest works were more likely to be printed on at least middlegrade paper, since buyers willing to spend several shillings on a book would not want something of shoddy manufacture. Even short works required Table 2. Length of works of fiction, by decade DECADE

UNDER 25 pp.

25–64 pp.

65–120 pp.

121–200 pp.

OVER 200 pp.

TOTAL

1690–1699 1700–1709 1710–1719 1720–1729

23 (17%) 17 (21%) 8 (11%) 8 (6%)

9 (6%) 9 (11%) 12 (17%) 29 (21%)

18 (13%) 4 (5%) 11 (16%) 22 (16%)

59 (42%) 14 (17%) 9 (13%) 28 (20%)

31 (22%) 37 (46%) 30 (43%) 53 (38%)

140 81 70 140

Total

56

59

55

110

151

Note: Includes new works of fiction, new translations, and the first instance of a reprint of a work originally published before 1690. Percentages are out of the total for each decade.

30 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

some investment in paper. A print run of 750 copies of a 16-page chapbook printed on the cheapest paper listed by Foxon (10s per ream) would cost the printer 15s.8 This would have been a moderate number of copies for an edition of a work of fiction.9 If the finished product sold for 3d (as many chapbooks did), the bookseller would have to sell 60 copies just to make up the cost of the paper. A longer work on mid-grade paper would need to sell even more copies. A book that was 320 pages in octavo would require 20 sheets per copy, or 30 reams for a print run of 750 copies. At £1 per ream (for mid-grade writing demy), this would cost the printer £30. If the retail price of the book was 3s (a common price for a work of this size), it would have to sell 200 copies to cover the investment in the paper. A bookseller would need to think that such a book would sell enough copies to account for the initial outlay of capital in the materials used to produce it. Reusable materials, such as the type and presses, were also very expensive. Raven notes that printers in the seventeenth century often had between 500 and 2,000 pounds of type in their inventory (including worn type).10 According to D. F. McKenzie, the cheapest English type ordered by the Cambridge University Press was 1s per pound, and it would have to be replaced every ten years.11 For a typical printer, this represents £25–£100 in type alone. Besides the type and press, McKenzie lists many other pieces of equipment, including press parts, composing sticks, frames and racks for the type, ink rollers and balls, and miscellaneous items like candles and coal (1.41–53). All of these operating costs would contribute to raising the price of the printed books above the cost of their materials. In addition to materials and equipment, a bookseller also had to factor the cost of labor into the expense of printing. Compositors, correctors, and pressmen all had special training in different parts of book production. McKenzie calculates that a skilled compositor might earn 7s 6d per sheet of composed type, correctors one-sixth of that (1s 3d per sheet), and a pressman 3–4s for 750 impressions.12 Pollard notes that “the rate of printing was fixed at a maximum of about 250 sheets an hour.”13 For a work of 10 sheets (160 octavo pages), printed in 750 copies—a fairly typical size for a work of fiction, and a moderate print run—the labor would cost at least £5, 18s 6d. A book of this size priced at a shilling would need to sell over a hundred copies to recoup the expense of the labor employed in its manufacture. Add to this another £15 for paper (15 reams at £1 per ream for demy), and the bookseller would need to sell well over half the print run (more than 400 copies) to cover the expense of producing it. Fiction and the Book Trade · 31

Two additional types of labor that could add to the cost of manufacturing a book were engraving and binding. Engraving, a form of illustration made from an etched copper plate, was primarily used on fancier works; cheaper publications like the chapbooks were illustrated with woodblock prints. Roger Gaskell comments that “the Cambridge University Press figures suggest that it cost about the same to machine one plate as three letterpress sheets for an edition of 500 copies,” from which he calculates that once the plate had been made, “adding a plate to a quarto of 30 sheets (240 pages) in an edition of 500 copies is like adding three sheets, it adds 10 per cent to the machining costs or 5 per cent to the overall production costs.”14 Most works of fiction were shorter than 240 quarto pages; for a work of 160 octavo pages (10 sheets), the addition of an engraving would add 33 percent to the cost of labor, or 15 percent to the total production costs, following Gaskell’s estimates. Little wonder that engravings were used sparingly. In works of fiction, engravings mainly appear as frontispieces, often depicting the author’s image copied from a painting.15 Occasionally the frontispiece illustrates the subject of the work, as is the case with The History of Cardinal Alberoni (1719) and The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell (1720), which have engravings of their titular subjects. Other engravings illustrate a scene from the work itself, as with the image of gamblers at play included in Memoirs of the Lives, Intrigues, and Comical Adventures of the most Famous Gamesters (1714). These could be very specific to the text, like the frontispiece to Scarron Incens’d, which uses a numbered key to show the reader how people in the image correspond to characters in the text. More often, however, they were generic, depicting a scene of the type of situation to be found in the work. The frontispiece to The Adventures of Rivella (1714), for example, depicts two men wearing periwigs standing by a garden wall. The same engraving is used as the frontispiece of Exilius (1715), with equal applicability. Binding, unlike printing and engraving, was often completed after purchase. Stuart Bennett has suggested that many books in this period were sold already bound, but most scholars assume that the standard practice was for a customer to buy an unbound book and have it bound by a specialized bookbinder.16 Although many works were advertised as available already bound, we have no way of knowing how large a proportion of buyers would want the trade binding. Bennett convincingly argues that many titles were offered bound, but this does not mean that many copies were sold this way: a bookseller offering books already bound might only have a few copies of 32 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

each title in a trade binding. Only in the nineteenth century did mechanization make the process cheap and fast enough for printers to issue almost all books already bound.17 Trade bindings did affect the price of the book: according to advertisements, a work might be available either “sewed” (unbound) or, at a higher price, bound already. The advertisement for Hanover Tales, for example, states the price as “1s. 6d., stitch’d, 2s. bound”—making the bound version a third again as expensive as a stitched copy. Day notes that “bound volumes seem in general to have cost 6d. more than the same volumes sewed,” which seems reasonable for shorter books.18 Sometimes booksellers had bindings of various materials and prices available, as with The Adventures of Rivella, which was “2s. in Sheep, 2s. 6d. in Calf ’s Leather.”19 Fancy printing and binding could be very expensive indeed: bookbinder price lists transcribed by Mirjam Foot show that a customer could expect to pay as much as several shillings extra for a custom binding.20 While such an expensive book likely had a considerable retail markup, the higher price also reflects more costly materials and more skillful labor used in its production. The cost of distributing books outside London raised the prices further. In this period, as John Feather argues, “The Londoners were the sole source of supply of all the books they published, and often went to considerable trouble to ensure that the country booksellers did not become sharers in such books.”21 There were few provincial presses, and they did not produce fiction in the early eighteenth century. C. Y. Ferdinand’s view of the provincial booksellers cooperating with a London “agency” producing the books makes sense given the centralized control of the trade.22 Newspapers had a wide distribution network by the middle of the century: the Salisbury Journal, for example, states in 1744 that advertisements are taken in by booksellers in London, Reading, Oxford, Bath, Bristol, Gloucester, Lymington, Shaftesbury, and the Isle of Wight.23 One could reasonably assume that some books were distributed accordingly; but the few items sent to provincial booksellers were mostly not fiction. The expense of printing meant that books were valued as commodities for the cost of their materials—irrespective of their intellectual contents. The paper and binding could cause wild variations in the expense of producing a printed book. Booksellers could turn a considerable profit if they sold out all the copies of an edition, but this was by no means guaranteed. One has to assume that many works of fiction did not sell out all their copies, as they had no built-in group of potential purchasers. A work of fiction Fiction and the Book Trade · 33

might prove to be successful enough to sell quickly, or it might languish in a bookseller’s storeroom. Given this risk, booksellers had to price works of fiction high enough that they could at least recoup their expenses even if the edition did not fully sell out. Costs to the Consumer

Costs to the consumer were high, reflecting the expenses of producing books. In relation to average incomes, the high retail prices of printed material would have made purchasing books impossible for many people. Readers at the bottom end of the economic scale would likely not be buying fiction: it was more of a luxury item than instructional works or Bibles. Most works of fiction, therefore, are priced outside the budget of the lower-income purchaser of print. The number of potential buyers is limited by literacy rates as well as income. Literacy is difficult to reconstruct, since there was no systematic assessment either of literacy or population, but the evidence points to a small number of potential fiction readers. R. A. Houston reports that “in central London during the 1750s, 92 per cent of bridegrooms could sign their names in full and 74 per cent of brides. Levels for the much smaller provincial town of Northampton were appreciably lower at 70 and 44 per cent but still superior to rural Bedfordshire’s 52 and 28 per cent literate.”24 If a considerable proportion of the population was totally illiterate (unable to sign their names), we can assume that another significant segment would not have had sophisticated enough literacy to make them recreational readers. As Houston points out, “This ability [to read] did not mean that a person can necessarily be described as a reader” (192). Among those who might be considered literate, only a small fraction would have had the money, leisure, and skills to read fiction. In this context, Paula R. Backscheider’s estimate that fiction “made up about .15 percent—not 15 percent but 0.15 percent—of all published works until the decade of 1720” is not as absurdly small as it might seem at first.25 Table 3 compares the number of works of fiction published during this period with the number of works in print, according to the ESTC. As these figures show, fiction constituted a very tiny share of the total print market, if not quite as minute a percentage as Backscheider claims. Moreover, the ratio of fiction to the total market remains the same throughout this period: there is no clear rising (or falling) in the production of fiction from a purely 34 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

Table 3. Quantity of fiction published and its share of the market

YEAR

NEW FICTION

1690 1700 1710 1720 1730

14 13 4 13 6

REPRINTS

TOTAL FICTION

TOTAL WORKS PUBLISHED 1

PERCENTAGE THAT IS FICTION

30 52 14 12 10

44 65 18 25 16

2810 3249 3603 2913 2685

1.5% 2% 0.5% 0.8% 0.6%

1. Gathered from the ESTC, October 2016. The ESTC counts new editions of the same work separately.

quantitative standpoint. Of course, these numbers are subject to a variety of influences that can pull them higher or lower: the ESTC often assigns years ending in 0 to works without a date on the imprint, for example, creating an artificial spike at the start of each new decade. Backscheider defines fiction as “books categorized as novels, tales, and romances” on title pages, so her figures may not include the chapbooks or fables counted here. Whether fiction is 0.15 or 2 percent of the market, it undeniably has a very small share in the print culture world. Although only a small segment of the reading public might be purchasing fiction, the range of retail prices is surprisingly wide, from three pence for a short chapbook to five or six shillings for a longer volume. After 1700, prices appear much more frequently on title pages than they do in the seventeenth century, and they are often listed in newspaper advertisements. Table 4 shows the number of works of each length that fall into each price category based on title-page prices, and demonstrates a correlation between length and price. There is a direct connection between the length and the retail price of the finished book: all of the works under sixpence are shorter than 64 pages, and the works that are 2s 6d or more are all at least 121 pages. This indicates the degree to which a book was a commodity to be bought and sold: buyers were paying for the paper, ink, and labor that went into producing a printed book, not purchasing an intellectual artifact. There is no distinction in price between books of the same length but different literary merit. The physical size of the printed book is the primary determinant of the retail price. These prices might not seem very high, but in light of average incomes, they are too expensive for many people to purchase. Gregory King divides Fiction and the Book Trade · 35

Table 4. Correlation of price and length of fiction 3–5d

6–11d

1s

1s 6d

2s

2s 6d

3s

3s 6d

4s OR MORE

1–24 pp. 25–64 pp. 65–120 pp. 121–200 pp. 201 or more pp.

4 2 0 0 0

0 9 0 0 0

1 26 12 5 0

0 0 5 7 3

0 0 1 4 0

0 0 0 4 0

0 0 0 1 4

0 0 0 0 2

0 0 0 0 7

Total

6

9

44

15

5

4

5

2

7

LENGTH

Note: Since this is based solely on title-page prices, most of the works counted here are from after 1700. Length is approximate: 8vo and 12mo works are counted together according to their number of pages. Where a bound and unbound price is given, the lower amount is counted here.

the population of England in 1688 into different classes with different income levels, estimating that 46,000 families earned more than £100 per annum, and a further 194,000 families earned between £50 and £100 per year.26 Fully 849,000 families (2.8 million people, or half the population) are classified as seamen, laborers, paupers, soldiers, or vagrants earning £20 per year per family or less. While King’s numbers have been revised by modern economic historians, his ratios are surprisingly accurate given his lack of statistical data.27 Without delving too far into household budgets and cost of living, one could see that if a family had even 10 percent of its income available for discretionary spending, there would not be much money for purchasing fiction. This budget would have to cover all forms of entertainment, including plays, newspapers, and luxuries of various sorts. According to King’s figures, fewer than 250,000 families—20 percent of the families in England—had at least £50 per annum. This would work out to about £5 of discretionary income, or 8s per month, for families at the lower end of this range—and it is unlikely that most of those families would spend half their month’s entertainment budget on a single work of fiction, at least not very often. Robert D. Hume argues that “if King’s emended approximations are even roughly accurate, the economic capacity to purchase culture was very narrowly concentrated, in the upper reaches of the groups specified in this list”—that is, titled nobility, wealthy merchants, traders and artisans, gentlemen, and “persons in offices.”28 Families earning less than £50 per annum—80 percent of the families in England—would mostly not be able to purchase books in the 3–5s range. Many books were sold second36 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

hand or at discounted prices long after their initial publication, but new books were expensive.29 This is not to say that readers in lower income brackets could not purchase fiction: they were just purchasing different sorts of fiction than was available to the wealthier readers. Fully 76 percent of the works counted in table 4 are priced at 1s 6d or less, but these less expensive books are the pamphlets, scandal stories, chapbooks, and other types of fiction not generally associated with the “novel” proper. The works in the most expensive category here—including The Entertaining Novels of Mrs. Jane Barker (5s), The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell (5s), Colonel Jacque (6s), and Robert Drury’s Journal (6s)—cost ten or twelve times as much as The Life and Adventures of Captain John Avery (6d ) or The Dumb Projector (6d ). By ignoring the retail prices of books, scholars have mistakenly concluded that “novels” such as Colonel Jacque were read by middle income people (following King’s strata, those in families earning £50 per year).30 In fact, most readers would have encountered fiction only in the shorter works that were more moderately priced. The practice of subscription is one way that publishers could ensure that an expensive work would have at least a minimum number of purchasers. As Brean S. Hammond explains, “Subscription publishing differed from joint-stock financing in that it was the consumers rather than the producers who financed copies of titles otherwise unavailable to them.”31 Customers paid part of the retail price for their copies in advance, which would provide the printer with guaranteed sales and the capital necessary for printing the edition. This was done regularly for longer works of poetry, history, science, law, and the like, as can be seen by the proposals in the Term Catalogues for new books to be printed by subscription.32 However, it was far from common, despite famous examples such as Pope’s Iliad: P. J. Wallis calculates that in the eighteenth century, between 2,000 and 3,000 books were published this way, averaging around 250 per decade after 1720.33 This is a small number considering how many books were published each decade. Not every proposal for a book by subscription resulted in a printed volume. Thomas Lockwood points out that “most often, it appears that the author unsupported by rank or influence simply lost the battle for subscribers.”34 A work that failed to gain enough subscribers would likely never appear. Most fiction authors apparently lacked the social connections necessary to publish by subscription. Only four works of fiction in this period inFiction and the Book Trade · 37

clude a list of subscribers, and they are all from the 1720s.35 Of these, only two, both by Mary Davys, have a significant number of titled subscribers: The Reform’d Coquet (1724) has 46 titled people out of 165 names listed. Davys clearly had good connections, as the subscription list appended to her Works (1725) includes eight dukes or duchesses, a marquis and marchioness, three earls, three countesses, and notable figures such as Pope, Charles Bathurst, Soame Jenyns, and Edward Young. Letters from a Lady of Quality (1721) has just 11 titled subscribers, and only 4 have a rank above baronet. Women subscribers feature prominently: 32 out of the 165 in The Reform’d Coquet are women, and they make up 121 out of 310 subscribers in Letters from a Lady of Quality. Such variation in the type of subscriber shows that the range of possible readers of fiction is very wide, from commoners to nobility of both sexes. With so few lists available, general assertions about readers and audiences are difficult to make. The fact that subscription was employed for works that were not astronomically large or expensive (The Reform’d Coquet is listed at 3s on the title page) indicates that even works of average size did not have a high number of potential buyers. Even subscription did not guarantee that the work would come out exactly as promised. The collected works of John Bunyan, for example, includes a note under the imprint on the title page warning that “Whereas it was proposed to the Subscribers, that this Book would contain near a Hundred and Forty Sheets, they are hereby certified, that by reason of the smallness of the Writing of the Manuscripts, it could not be so exactly computed, so that it is now about 155 Sheets, which additional sheets advance the price to about 1s. 6d. more in a Book, of which only one Shilling more is Required of the Subscribers.”36 The printed version was longer than originally predicted, so of the additional 1s 6d added to the cost, the printer would pay 6d and the subscribers would each have to pay an extra 1s. A subscriber would either have to pay up or risk losing the original investment. The number of subscribers required for the edition to go into print (an average of 250) would be enough for the printer to recoup most of the cost.37 More common than subscription for fiction was publication by parts, in which half or a third of a book would be printed, and the rest would come out only if the first part sold well enough. In this period, 101 works of fiction are divided into parts or volumes, but the parts were not necessarily sold separately. Even if they were available individually, they were often bound together into a single volume. A number of works state outright that the sequel will only be published if the first sells. For example, the address to 38 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

the reader in the first volume of A Collection of Novels (1699) offers, “if this Volume meets with a quick Sale, I will oblige the Ladies with a Second” (sig. A2r-v). The bookseller would not venture to issue a second part if the first did not do well. Some works with no indication that they are to be published in parts hint at a possible sequel that may later come out if the first sells well. Love in Excess ends with the promise that “the Sequel of this Glorious beginning, and what Effect the dispair and imprecations of Amena (when she heard of it) produc’d, shall with the Continuance of the Chevalier Brillian’s Adventures be faithfully Related in the next Part.”38 Clearly, Haywood had the sequels in mind when she finished the first part. The work was initially printed in a single part (1719), and the subsequent parts 2 and 3 appeared later (1719 and 1720). All three are printed in the collected edition of Haywood’s works in 1724. Another well-known example of this is the ending of the first volume of Robinson Crusoe, which describes in a single paragraph Crusoe’s return to his island, as it is subsequently related at length in Farther Adventures.39 Unlike subscription, in which the purchasers provided the capital for producing the book, publication by parts still represented some financial risk to the publisher if the first part did not sell. Publication by parts should not be mistaken for serialization, the practice of printing a work in small pieces over an extended period of time. As Robert D. Mayo points out, “Except in the single-essay periodical, serialization was so irregular and accidental a feature of eighteenth-century magazine stories that it affords no fixed standard of any kind.”40 Donald Kay identifies “approximately one hundred distinct stories and anecdotes with definite narrative qualities” in the 555 issues of the Spectator.41 These stories employ techniques of fiction such as dialogue and characterization, a particular narrative perspective, and descriptions of places, people, and circumstances, but in many cases there is no way to ascertain their truth. While a few works of fiction were reprinted in newspapers in the 1720s, the practice was sporadic, and serialized fiction was not an established part of the market.42 Although there were ways for the cost of fiction to be shared, either in parts over time or between the purchaser and the bookseller, the cost remained relatively high. Unlike other types of books, fiction had an entirely unpredictable market. Fiction was not a necessary purchase, the way that an instructional manual or a textbook might be, nor did it have a clearly defined sector of the market the way law or medical books did. Given these Fiction and the Book Trade · 39

uncertainties, the printing of fiction represented considerably more financial risk to the bookseller than other types of books. One work might be a relative bestseller, demanding edition after edition; another might molder in a warehouse awaiting the scrap heap. For many successful works such as Robinson Crusoe or Letters from the Dead to the Living, there was no logical reason for their greater sales compared to others with similar content. Small wonder, then, that so many of the works of fiction printed in this period were translations of books that had already proven their appeal in a foreign market or short works that did not require such considerable outlay of capital. Modern Scholarship on “Popular” Fiction

Clearly, most fiction was not being read by the “middle class,” nor was fiction “popular” in the modern sense of the word. If by “middle class” we mean “middle income,” this simply was not, and could not, be true. The high price of most books, the small portion of the population who might be potential readers of literature at all, and the small print runs of even wellknown titles make the fiction market a small world indeed. The term “popular” is ambiguous, as critics often mean both “widely purchased and read” and “appealing to the majority of people, especially lower classes.” In the later eighteenth century, circulating libraries expanded fiction readership, especially for expensive titles. However, as William St Clair argues, “membership never widened beyond the aristocratic, professional, and business classes. Although they maintained a nationwide network, they never reached more than about 1 per cent of the population.”43 At the height of their popularity, then, circulating libraries did not impact most people— and such libraries did not exist at all in England in the early part of the century.44 Even subscription libraries, derived from the practice of booksellers lending or renting books, did not emerge until the 1740s.45 Ecclesiastical and municipal libraries were not likely to stock fiction. Another suggestion, derived from Addison’s figures about the readership of the Spectator, is that each copy of a book had multiple readers, so the number of readers is much greater than the number of copies sold. Addison calculates that “there are already Three Thousand of them distributed every Day: So that if I allow Twenty Readers to every Paper, which I look upon as a modest Computation, I may reckon about Three-score Thousand Disciples in London and Westminster.”46 Watt and Day accept this estimate at 40 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

face value.47 Day further calculates that “the potential readers of fiction (including epistolary fiction) in Addison’s England may be numbered conservatively at twenty to thirty thousand” (71). This could be accurate, but only if we take “potential readers of fiction” to mean anyone with even very minimal reading ability. Literacy rates based on the ability to sign one’s name are hardly an indication of the level of reading necessary for enjoying fiction. St Clair, citing contemporary accounts in the Edinburgh Review, suggests a far more conservative number of four readers per copy, even in the late eighteenth century when libraries extended the circulation of books.48 Given the different ways readers could encounter a text—borrowing from other readers, inheriting or receiving it as a gift, hearing it read aloud, reading it in a public space such as a tavern or a bookstall—such figures remain merely suggestive. The number of people who bought fiction, given its literary complexity and cost, is likely much smaller—and for longer works of narrative fiction, it is probably on the order of hundreds rather than thousands. This conclusion is supported by the average print runs: although Julian Hoppit cites as many as 100,000 copies of a single work sold in this period (Sacheverell’s Perils of False Brethren), 750 was in fact more usual for a single edition of a work of fiction.49 Even if every copy of a 750-copy edition was sold (not too likely given the lack of reprints), and each one had four readers, only 3,000 people would read that work. Such numbers highlight the difference between readers of newspapers and readers of fiction: newspapers were short, widely distributed, inexpensive, and available at coffeehouses and other public places. Fiction was longer, generally required more sophisticated reading skills, was too expensive for most people, and was not widely available to those who could not afford to purchase it. Markman Ellis’s analysis of 395 books from coffeehouse libraries demonstrates that they were primarily either poetry or pamphlets on history, law, and politics.50 None of the items known to have been in these libraries were fiction. Even if there were tens of thousands of readers in England in the early eighteenth century—a claim I am neither disputing nor supporting—they were clearly not mostly readers of fiction. This highlights two important distinctions that need to be made. First, there is little correlation between the cost of a book and its contents. Expensive books, like Colonel Jacque, often featured poor characters and “lowlife” surroundings. Cheap books, like the chapbook versions of Sir Bevis of Southampton, often had noble characters from romance. Second, the porFiction and the Book Trade · 41

tion of the population that read fiction, even cheap fiction, was small. Few critics of fiction have treated it in the context of its readership, and instead discuss it as though it existed in a vacuum. Even a “popular” work like Crusoe was far from a universal phenomenon. Everyone who read fiction may have read a particular work, but the number of people who could read it, financially or intellectually, is small.

Publishers and Booksellers of Fiction Booksellers, as I shall argue at greater length in the next chapter, controlled the type of fiction produced far more than authors did. Who, then, were these booksellers, and what roles did they play in the production of fiction in the early eighteenth century? Only a few booksellers published fiction, and over time they become increasingly collaborative in order to finance the publication of longer works. This signals that buyers were more willing to spend money on fiction than they had been, and there was greater demand for longer, more complex works. At the same time, however, the chapbook and pamphlet trade—a separate, parallel segment of the printing world— remained as vibrant as it had been, and did not appear to be losing any share of its market to the book industry. First, a clarification: I am using the term “bookseller” as it was used in the eighteenth century. As Michael Treadwell explains, “The one word ‘bookseller’ served to cover anyone who engaged in any one, or any combination, of the three activities, now generally separate, which we designate as wholesale and retail bookselling and publishing.”51 While one term might cover many different functions, however, many booksellers specialized in niches of the market: certain types of books, or specific parts of the printing process and trade. The appearance of a bookseller’s name on an imprint might indicate a wide variety of associations with the production and selling of the text, and there is often no way to know what role a person had in producing a particular title. Raven suggests that “arrangements between booksellers listed as the principal financing publishers (usually ‘printed for’) and first-level associates (most often ‘also sold by’) usually, but not always, implied an agreement to share costs roughly in proportion to the number of copies to be taken by the participating shops.”52 But information derived from the language connecting names in an imprint can be unreliable or misleading. Given the difficulties of determining what each person might have contributed, I am here discussing booksellers as simply appearing on 42 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

a particular imprint and therefore having some connection with the book, without trying to discern the exact roles of everyone involved. A Brief Survey of Booksellers of Fiction

Booksellers of fiction fall into three types: those who specialized in a particular kind of fiction, those who published fiction alongside an array of other works, and those who only published the occasional work of fiction but primarily concentrated in other areas. There are 236 different people named in imprints for works of fiction during the forty-year period 1690–1730, counting only the first appearance of a work or the first instance after 1690 of the reprinting of an older work. Of these 236, just thirty-four appear on five or more different titles. While some booksellers published more fiction than others—John Roberts has the highest number of fiction imprints to his name at thirty-one—the publication of fiction was not concentrated in the hands of a select few, but was spread across the trade. Given this, the booksellers whose names appear on the most imprints are, for the most part, among the most productive publishers across all genres. Table 5 shows some of the most prominent booksellers during this period, and the percentage of their total print production that is new fiction. Although precision in such calculations is impossible given the vagaries of the ESTC, the figures here do show that even among those booksellers whose names appear on the highest number of fiction imprints, fiction accounts for only a very small portion of their total output. Except for Bentley, Chapman, Chetwood, and Wellington, the percentage of their publication output that booksellers devote to fiction is within 1 percent of the share that fiction occupied in the whole industry. Chapman and Chetwood appear on a higher number of works of fiction because they were among the booksellers who routinely issued works by Haywood, so they appear jointly on many of her titles. Bentley and Wellington are the only booksellers on this list who could really be said to be featuring fiction, appearing on the imprints of fourteen and ten different titles, respectively.53 Despite this small number of new works, Bentley’s fiction publication was notable enough that John Dunton calls him “Novel Bentley.”54 Just as fiction occupies a very small portion of the total market, it takes up a similar fraction of the lists of booksellers who publish it. The most prolific of the booksellers of fiction was Roberts, who specialized mainly in romantic tales (Exilius, The Double Marriage) and works Fiction and the Book Trade · 43

Table 5. Fiction output of prominent booksellers

BOOKSELLER

Richard Bentley Arthur Bettesworth Josiah Blare Daniel Brown Samuel Chapman William Chetwood Edmund Curll Jonah Deacon John Morphew John Roberts Jacob Tonson Richard Wellington

TOTAL OUTPUT (IN THE PERIOD 1690–1730)

WORKS OF FICTION

PERCENTAGE OF OUTPUT THAT IS FICTION

161 737 422 634 99 123 572 459 822 2285 622 136

14 22 12 21 14 13 13 15 15 31 8 10

9% 3% 3% 3% 14% 11% 2% 3% 2% 1% 1% 7%

Note: “Prominent” as defined by their frequency on imprints of fiction, with the exception of Tonson. “Total output” is calculated using the ESTC and includes reprints of the same title within this period as separate publications. Includes joint publication; percentages are for rough estimation only. Bentley died in 1697; Blare and Deacon were finished by c. 1705.

of scandal and intrigue (The Court of Atalantis, Letters from the Palace of Fame). He also published work by at least four women writers, including thirteen titles by Haywood, and was part of three publications that had more than four booksellers listed in the imprint.55 None of the works of fiction he published were ever previously in print, and the only foreign work he published was translated by Haywood.56 He was not particularly interested in fiction, however, and had he not been connected with Haywood, he would have had almost no fiction to his imprint. Roberts was one of the major publishers in the trade, and fiction was only a small portion (1 percent) of his total output. Hence, looking simply at imprints cannot tell us much about which publishers were actively trying to publish fiction. The chapbook publishers deserve special consideration, since they are mostly a separate part of the print industry from the book publishers. The most prominent chapbook publishers in this period are Josiah Blare, Charles Brown, George Conyers, Jonah Deacon, Charles Dennisson, and Thomas Norris, and several others who appear only as initials (A. M., J. M., and W. O.). These booksellers generally only appear on chapbooks or longer versions of the chapbook stories, often in combination with each other. 44 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

Spufford explains that “the publication of both ballads and chapbooks in the late seventeenth century, up to the expiry of the Printing Act in 1695, was largely in the hands of a group of London men known as the Ballad Partners,” which included “Wright, Clarke, Passinger, and Thackeray” and later was composed of “Brooksby, Deacon, Blare and Back, with Conyers and Dennisson.”57 Based on the valuation of the booksellers’ fortunes upon their deaths, Spufford concludes that while chapbook publishing was highly lucrative for some people, “chapbook specialists were not necessarily prosperous” (89). The cooperation of several major publishers in this market meant that a small group of people had a monopoly on chapbook publishing. This may have been easier with chapbooks than other types of fiction since so many of the titles had been in print for a century or more and the printing style and woodblock illustrations had remained the same. Readers of chapbooks do not appear to have demanded much novelty or change in the genre, so there would have been little opportunity for an innovative new publisher to compete with the tradition. Some booksellers, while not specializing in fiction, did seem to be choosing works that had some connection with each other in their content or author. Richard Baldwin, for example, published four works of secret history in three years, so he seemed to be trying to tap into a trend.58 Bentley’s fourteen different titles all appeared in seven years (1690–96), and eleven of them are translations of French or Spanish works. Perhaps Bentley realized there was a demand for translations of foreign fiction, or maybe he found he could make more money from the translations than from original works. Bentley’s fiction ventures were successful: Edward Arber comments that “Magnes and Bentley, afterwards, Richard Bentley alone, issued Novels, usually translations from the French; and that Firm continued to be a great issuer of Fiction for more than two hundred years.”59 Other publishers printed several works by a particular author, as Daniel Brown and Chapman did with Haywood and as Curll did with Barker. While specialization can be a successful strategy, some of those booksellers who had the most fiction titles come out under their imprints published books of a variety of genres. The fiction published often seems rather random. John Morphew, for example, appears on the imprints of fifteen works of fiction not previously printed in this period, ranging from fanciful satire like The Golden Spy (1709) and Arbuthnot’s Law is a Bottomless Pit (1712) to love tales like The Generous Rivals (1711) and The Power of Love: in Seven Novels (1720).60 These books have no obvious connections—they Fiction and the Book Trade · 45

are different sorts of works, for diverse audiences. The ESTC lists several hundred titles under Morphew’s imprint, in almost every area of interest, indicating his role as a trade publisher rather than a copyright-holding bookseller. Even though Morphew did publish a considerable number of works of fiction, these seem to be just part of a varied output rather than a special interest. Finally, most booksellers whose names appear on fiction imprints chiefly published in other areas and only occasionally produced a work of fiction. There were eighty-seven booksellers who appeared just once on an imprint of a new work of fiction during this period—almost three times the number of booksellers appearing on more than four titles. This shows the breadth of fiction publication across the trade. Sometimes, the type of fiction produced makes sense alongside a bookseller’s usual genre: Nathaniel Ponder, for example, published religious works almost exclusively, so the appearance of his name on the imprints of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (1678), The Holy War (1696), and The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1680), and no other works of fiction, does not seem startling. In many cases, however, there is no logical reason for a bookseller to publish just one work of new fiction in a forty-year period. Why did Samuel Bunchley pick The Spanish Libertines (1707) as his only work of fiction, when the other books with his imprint have titles like The Anathema of the False Prophets (1708) or A Funeral Sermon upon the Death of Mrs. Urith Bunchley (1708)? No explanation is apparent from the contents of the works. Since fiction was published and sold by such a wide range of booksellers, they were evidently responding to market demand in comparable ways across the print industry. Most booksellers, even those who did print fiction, did not seem to recognize it as a separate endeavor, but might have included a few titles along with their other publications. No single bookseller or group of booksellers dictated the type of fiction sold by the whole, but they were all reacting to similar forces: the rules of copyright, the types of literature available for print, the restrictions of censorship, and, above all, the demands of book purchasers. Four Models for Success in Publishing Fiction: Wellington, Deacon, Brown, and Tonson

The large number of booksellers and bookselling practices means that there is no single model for success in the business, but instead a variety of ways 46 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

by which an enterprising bookseller could have a long career and perhaps make a significant fortune. Here, I shall consider the strategies by which four different booksellers—Richard Wellington, John Deacon, Daniel Brown, and Jacob Tonson—became significant publishers of fiction in the early eighteenth century. These are not necessarily the four most successful booksellers of fiction, but they exemplify techniques of specialization, advertising, business partnering, and relationships with authors. Wellington’s strategy was to advertise that his shop specialized in fiction. Advertisements for his wares, fiction or otherwise, frequently comment that novels or plays could be found at his shop. A 1699 advertisement for The Family Physician, a book of home remedies, adds that the work is “Printed for Richard Wellington at the Lute in St Pauls Churchyard. Where Gent. May have all all [sic] sorts of Novels at 6 s. per Doz. and be furnished with all sorts of Plays.”61 For customers with 6s at once to spare, getting “Novels” at 6d apiece was a bargain, considering that most were at least a shilling purchased individually. The sale of fiction by quantity rather than quality or title suggests that Wellington does not expect his customers to be very picky about which works he has available, so long as they are cheap. Wellington frequently adds something about the fiction for sale at his shop to an advertisement mainly for some other genre. A notice for a performance of The Spanish Fryar at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane states that “This Play is Sold by Richard Wellington at the Dolphin and Crown in St. Paul’s Church-yard. Where you may have most Novels.”62 This comment might serve both to pull in customers who were looking for novels and did not know that Wellington supplied them, and to remind customers who frequented the shop for novels that the play is available at that same place. Either way, this clearly indicates that Wellington is trying to associate his name with the sale of fiction in the minds of his customers. How justified was Wellington’s claim that he had “most Novels” for sale? The answer depends partly on how one defines a “novel”: given the price at which he is selling them, Wellington presumably means shorter works of fiction (longer than chapbooks, but less than two hundred pages). His name appears on the imprints of at least ten works of fiction in this period, including four titles between 1696 and 1702 not previously published in English.63 Of course, Wellington likely sold many books at his shop that did not have his name on the imprints. He also evidently bought and sold used books, as he states in a list of his wares that he “gives the full Value for any Library or Parcel of Books.”64 Wellington sold books of many types, but Fiction and the Book Trade · 47

he advertises fiction prominently even with works that are not themselves fiction. His technique of specialized advertising to attract fiction buyers worked, and he achieved a high level of success as a bookseller. Upon his death in 1715, his widow’s inheritance (reportedly only one-third of his net worth) included “Books for Sale in the Way of his Trade, and of Copies, and Parts and Shares in Copies, whereof he had the Property of Printing vested in him, and of Debts due to him,” and it “had been valued and appraised by two indifferent Persons at 521l. 10s.”65 Such wealth is considerable. Although much of this would be in expensive equipment or valuable stock, it represents a substantial outlay of capital. By far the most specialized of the fiction printers were those engaged in the chapbook trade. Deacon was one of these who accumulated a moderate amount of stock by the time of his death (valued at £220, not including debts owed to him).66 Cyprian Blagden identifies Deacon as a competitor to the “Ballad Partners,” the group of booksellers who monopolized the chapbook trade.67 Most of his fiction publications are reprints of older stories, especially medieval tales rewritten as prose fiction, and Elizabethan stories, often abridged. In addition to the short chapbooks that might be sold by traveling hawkers, there are a few longer works that carry his name on the imprint, such as the 220-page The Most Excellent and Famous History of the Most Renowned Knight Amadis of Greece (1693). These longer works generally also have their origins in the medieval or Elizabethan traditions, and they are printed in the style of the chapbooks with woodblock prints, modified black letter type, and narrow margins. He used abridgments to advertise the longer works: the chapbook of Thomas of Reading concludes that “having given as large an Account of the Lives and Actions of The Sir Worthy Yeoman of the West, as our intended Brevity would permit, I refer you to the History more at large, sold by J. Deacon.”68 Deacon was mainly active in the 1690s, before daily newspapers, so he evidently relied on the established chapbook trade to sell his works without advertising. His strategy of publishing works of comparable design and content, both chapbooks and longer stories, makes good business sense. Brown, like Deacon, specialized in works of fiction that had similar content, focusing on love and intrigue stories. He was one of Haywood’s primary publishers, printing nine of her works and three of her translations, and he appears in imprints along with the same few people over several decades. Henry Robert Plomer estimates that Brown was active from 1672

48 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

until 1729, a career long for him to build relationships with other booksellers.69 Some of the works from the 1720s say “D. Browne, jun.” in the imprint, so presumably at some point Brown’s business was taken over by his son.70 When Brown Junior published a collection of Haywood’s works in 1724, the technique of focusing on a particular author clearly paid off: even the earliest pre-publication advertisement lists the contents of each volume and adds that “Any of the above Pieces may be had single” from Brown.71 In this way, he uses Haywood’s name and fame to draw customers to his shop, even if they are not interested in the expensive multi-volume collection. Tonson, unlike Wellington, Deacon, and Brown, is well known to scholars of eighteenth-century literature as one of the most significant and influential publishers of the early part of the century. Upon his death he left a vast fortune, reported to be £40,000.72 He is famous for his connections with Dryden and Pope, and for his editions (and those published by his nephew) of Shakespeare, Milton, and the classics. His fiction publications, however, remain relatively unnoticed: his biographer Kathleen M. Lynch only briefly mentions a few works of fiction published under Tonson’s imprint, mostly those by Behn.73 Tonson’s strategy was to publish new translations of foreign works already famous in their original languages. This enabled him to be the sole person on the imprint for five of the most reprinted and expensive translations of fiction in the early eighteenth century: Le Sage’s The Devil upon Two Sticks (1708) and The History Gil Blas (1716), La Croix’s Turkish Tales (1708), Gueulette’s A Thousand and One Quarters of Hours (1716), and Montesquieu’s Persian Letters (1722). Each of these was reprinted multiple times, and the works by Le Sage appeared in dozens of editions throughout the whole eighteenth century. Tonson was especially shrewd about two aspects of fiction publication: the advantages of translations, and the prices he charged. Translation was profitable for booksellers, since a newly translated book was treated under copyright laws as though it were a new original work, but it had already proven its success in its original language. This meant that Tonson could get a work by a famous author for a low price by paying only the translator, and he had reason to think that people would be interested in buying it. Tonson also charged prices at the upper end of the fiction market for these works: The Devil upon Two Sticks sold for 3s 6d and Turkish Tales for 3s.74 A higher price and lower outlay would enable Tonson to make greater profits on these sales than he might make from the type of 1s original works sold

Fiction and the Book Trade · 49

by Brown. Tonson’s main specialization in poetry and the classics meant that his customers were already from the wealthier end of the market, so his fiction would likely find purchasers. These four booksellers, with their very different strategies for selling fiction, demonstrate the range of the fiction market both for buyers and sellers. All four focus on different types of fiction based on either the content of the work or the format, size, and price of the finished books. Deacon and Tonson in particular show how fiction can fit into a specialty within book publishing more broadly (chapbooks and translations, respectively), which would attract buyers who might not be looking for fiction but would be interested in books of a certain price or type. Of course, these booksellers were not working in isolation, but frequently combined to publish works together, so their names sometimes appear on works that might seem uncharacteristic. Collaboration allowed more specialized publishers to have a wider variety of books in their shops, and all of these booksellers took advantage of opportunities for joint publication. Joint Publication

The practice of joint publication enabled even minor booksellers to publish a longer or more expensive work than they could independently. Together, they could come up with sufficient capital without any single publisher making a serious financial gamble. Hammond points out that “the joint-stock method of financing operated widely in the printing trade, whereby printers’ consortia would combine to spread the risk of publishing expensive and possibly uneconomical titles. After 1680 the so-called cartel of printers frequently operated thus.”75 Some publishers, like Anne Dodd and Roberts, seemed more interested in joint publication than others, and there were certain groups of publishers who published several works of fiction together. Joint publication enabled even less successful booksellers to cash in on profitable titles. Unlike subscription, which was seldom used for fiction, joint publication was a widespread practice that became more common throughout this period. Table 6 shows the degree to which works of fiction were published this way in the early eighteenth century. As this table demonstrates, the publication of fiction shifts from being primarily dominated by individual publishers working alone to a more collaborative process. In the 1690s, 60 percent of the works of fiction have just a single name on the imprint, 50 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

Table 6. The practice of joint publication of fiction, by decade

DECADE

1690–1699 1700–1709 1710–1719 1720–1729 Total

1 BOOKSELLER

2–4 BOOKSELLERS

MORE THAN 4 BOOKSELLERS

NO BOOKSELLER LISTED

TOTAL WORKS PRINTED

93 (60%) 43 (46%) 30 (41%) 64 (44%)

56 (35%) 28 (30%) 22 (30%) 47 (32%)

0 6 (6%) 5 (7%) 21 (14%)

8 (5%) 17 (18%) 16 (22%) 13 (9%)

157 94 73 145

230 (49%)

153 (33%)

32 (7%)

54 (12%)

469

Note: This table counts the first instance of a work appearing in this period, using the copies available on EEBO and ECCO. The figures should therefore be taken as approximate rather than exact.

and none have more than four; by the 1720s, only 44 percent have a single name, but 14 percent have more than four booksellers. The percentage of works that have two to four people listed remains about the same throughout these four decades. There are likely several reasons for this shift, including the broadening of the publishing world to include more minor publishers (who might only be able to publish an expensive work through joint financing) and the establishment of some long-term partnerships in the eighteenth century that led to many works appearing under the same group of names. The increasing use of joint publishing for fiction correlates with greater demand for longer and more complex works. This correlation can be seen by comparing the number of people listed on an imprint with the length of the work produced, as depicted in table 7. Out of the 394 works of fiction counted, 35 (9 percent) have more than four booksellers listed in the imprint. Two-thirds of these are more than two hundred pages in length. Joint publication of fiction, therefore, was far more likely for long works—a fact that makes sense considering the greater initial expense a longer work would require for materials and labor. Joint publication with five or more booksellers was not as frequently practiced for fiction as were partnerships between two, three, or four booksellers. Only one of the works with more than four booksellers listed is fewer than twenty-five pages: A Full and True Account of a Horrid and Barbarous Revenge by Poison, on the Body of Mr. Edmund Curll, Bookseller (1716) is just six folio pages.76 This might have been published jointly because several booksellers shared in the joke on Curll: Paul Baines and Pat Rogers note that the five publishers on the imprint “all had collaborated with Curll at Fiction and the Book Trade · 51

Table 7. Joint publication and the length of books printed LENGTH (APPROX.)

Under 25 pp. 25–64 pp. 65–120 pp. 121–200 pp. More than 200 pp.

1 BOOKSELLER

2–4 BOOKSELLERS

5 OR MORE BOOKSELLERS

TOTAL WORKS PRINTED

33 37 37 49 65

14 15 10 38 61

1 3 1 7 23

48 55 48 94 149

Note: This table only includes works for which at least one bookseller is named in the imprint. No distinction is made between different formats of books; these numbers are therefore meant only for rough estimates of length.

one time or another.”77 In this case the reason for joint publication is likely personal rather than financial. Not surprisingly, there are a few groups of booksellers who repeatedly appear on title pages in combination with each other. The largest of these groups consisted of E. Bell, J. Darby, A. Bettesworth, F. Fayram, J. Pemberton, J. Hooke, C. Rivington, F. Clay, J. Bately, and E. Symon, and they published five new works of fiction together.78 However, such large groups of publishers all appearing on a single imprint are relatively rare. A more common type of collaborative publishing is that practiced by Brown, William Chetwood, and Samuel Chapman. Of the twenty-five different fiction titles from this period on which one of the three appeared, at least two of the three booksellers appear on eight titles; all three are on Haywood’s three works, The British Recluse (1722), The Injur’d Husband (1722), and Idalia (1723). This was an ongoing collaborative publishing agreement, not a single instance of booksellers joining resources to publish an expensive work. In other cases, however, booksellers did not work with the same people in their joint ventures. Dodd, for example, appears on the imprints of six works of new fiction in this period, all of which list other people on the imprints. Of the twelve booksellers named, only three—J. Graves, J. Roberts, and J. Brotherton—appear more than once alongside Dodd on works of fiction. Based solely on the fiction output, there is no clear pattern of longterm partnership. Joint publication is especially important for fiction because it enabled booksellers to undertake riskier projects without serious individual hazard. Fiction, without a clearly defined market and with no guarantees of success, was more of a financial gamble than books catering to specific audiences. 52 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

Without joint publication, most publishers would have little incentive to publish fiction, let alone long works. Collaborative publishing arrangements mitigated the risk for any single bookseller and allowed more long works to be printed. The rise in joint publication of fiction over the four decades at issue here indicates an increasing complexity of business relationships in the print industry. Joint publishing arrangements such as these are only possible in a small, tightly connected network of booksellers, as was found in London—which may have been one reason so few works of fiction were published elsewhere in Britain. Publishing Outside of London

While nearly all new works of fiction were first published in London, many were later reprinted in Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, or cities around England. A surprising number of books, however, were not published elsewhere until long after their initial appearance in London, even titles that were reprinted many times. Raven writes that in the middle of the eighteenth century, “the main challenge identified by leading London booksellers involved Irish and Scottish reprints, particularly those of novels and miscellanies.”79 While this may have been true by 1750, for the fiction of the early eighteenth century this was not the case. Ireland and Scotland were certainly a threat, but their potential impact on the profits to the London booksellers from sales of fiction seems to have been negligible. The Dublin book trade had very mixed relations with London, particularly following the 1710 Statute of Anne, which did not apply to Ireland. Very few titles were published first in Ireland in the early eighteenth century: only two works of fiction appeared first in Dublin, and neither was ever printed in London. An Historical Romance of the Wars, between the Mighty Giant Gallieno and the Great Knight Nasonius (1694) was never reprinted at all. The Treacherous Confident, or Fortune’s Change, A Novel (1728) was reprinted four times in Dublin but never in London. More often, books printed originally in London or Edinburgh were then reprinted in Dublin. Richard B. Sher calculates, “Virtually all new [Scottish] books with strong sales potential generated at least one Irish reprint, and several were reprinted more than once.”80 To judge by editions recorded in the ESTC, out of 135 works of fiction in the period 1690–1730 that were reprinted within five years of their original publication, 41 (30 percent) were reprinted in Dublin in the eighteenth century. Fiction and the Book Trade · 53

Naturally, such a one-sided trade incited much aggravation. M. Pollard notes that “there is plenty of evidence from advertisements that Dublin printers could significantly undercut London prices,” and that “Ireland obviously imported only those books that were limited in appeal or were otherwise too expensive or difficult to reprint at home,” though sometimes booksellers in England and Ireland cooperated to sell the same title.81 For fiction, this seems to have been less of an issue: the market for books was smaller in Ireland, and so fewer people might be interested in fiction. With a smaller customer base, a printer in Dublin would have to think that a work would be very popular before investing in printing it, and most works of fiction had no guarantee of success. Like Ireland, Scotland also experienced considerable friction between local publishers and London booksellers, but with significantly different legal implications. English copyright laws applied to Scotland but not to Ireland. Feather points out that the Scottish “could not even reprint for their domestic market,” though by the 1730s many printers were ignoring the laws.82 This meant that Scottish fiction readers who wanted a book originally published in London had to import printed copies from London rather than purchase a Scottish edition, greatly increasing the cost. Ireland, by contrast, could reprint books under English copyright both for Irish readers and for export to other countries. As with Ireland, Scotland produced very few original works of fiction. Only two fiction titles were first published in Scotland in this period: A Timely Warning to Rash and Disobedient Children (1721) and The Life of Mary Stewart, Queen of Scotland and France (1725). The first of these, a seven-page pamphlet based on a sermon, is a Faust story of a young man who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for twelve years of unlimited money, repenting only when the devil comes to collect him. Interestingly, the title page specifies that the main character is from “the Parish of Stepheny, in the Suburbs of London,” not Scotland. This may be because the story originated in England, or the writer set it at a distance from his readers to make it seem more plausible. The second work, The Life of Mary Stewart, is a translation of a French text by Pierre Le Pesant. It portrays the Scottish queen as a victim of persecution, wrongly accused of adultery and helping to murder her husband. The content makes its publication in Scotland logical, and it seems to have done well, as a second edition was printed in London in 1729. The first edition was published by subscription, and the list

54 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

Table 8. Reprinting of fiction outside London WITHIN 2 YEARS OF 1ST ED.

WITHIN 21 YEARS

MORE THAN 21 YEARS

TOTAL

Dublin Other cities in Ireland Edinburgh Glasgow Other cities in Scotland English cities outside London

21 0 3 0 0 1

7 0 0 1 0 2

13 3 9 9 4 9

41 3 12 10 4 12

Total

25

10

47

82

CIT Y

of subscribers includes several dukes, earls, and marquis as well as writers, merchants, advocates, vintners, and other tradespeople. A high percentage of successful works of fiction—here defined as those that were reprinted in London or elsewhere within five years of their original publication—were reprinted in Dublin or Edinburgh. Table 8 shows the practice of reprinting fiction in Dublin, Edinburgh, and other locations, as well as the amount of time between the initial appearance of a work in London and its reprinting in another city. The interval of two years was chosen because it would allow for a printer to set the type and produce the work after the first edition was available for sale, but both would presumably be available around the same time; twenty-one years is the length of time that pre-1710 books remained under copyright after the Statute of Anne. This table demonstrates that Dublin was by far the most active city besides London in the reprinting of fiction, and that Edinburgh and Glasgow together reprinted about half as many titles. The high number of works that were printed outside London within two years of the original publication (twenty-five titles) can be explained by two phenomena: the pirating of successful material while it was still popular, and the collaboration between booksellers in both places to print a particular work simultaneously. The fact that many works were reprinted outside London long after their original publication (more than twenty-one years) can be explained by the copyright law: beginning in 1710, a holder of copyright could have fourteen years of exclusive printing privileges (twenty-one for existing copyright) before a book would become public domain. Many printers outside of London, therefore, waited until a book was out of copyright before reprinting it.

Fiction and the Book Trade · 55

Another interesting pattern that developed with works that were reprinted many times is that they sometimes had a short period of popularity when first reprinted in another location, even if they had been in print in London for a long time. For example, The Adventures of Telemachus was first printed in London in 1699 and was reprinted dozens of times through the whole eighteenth century. It was first printed in Glasgow in 1750, then again in 1755, 1763, and 1764—but not again afterward. While such a pattern might have many causes, it suggests that Telemachus enjoyed a brief period of popularity in Glasgow when it was first printed there, even though it had been available in London for half a century. A similar pattern occurred with Le Diable Boiteux, which was printed in London in 1708 but not in Edinburgh until 1761, and then was reprinted in Edinburgh in 1762, 1770, 1773, and 1778. As is apparent from the statistics in table 8, printing in England outside of London was slower to develop than in Ireland and Scotland. Colin Clair points out that although “printing was started in Bristol in 1695, Plymouth in 1696, Shrewsbury in 1696, and Exeter in 1698,” provincial printers did not do much literary production: “apart from ‘job’ printing, such as tradesman’s cards, funeral cards, and local notices, there was little yet for the printer to do in the smaller towns.”83 Those few provincial readers who had sufficient wealth and leisure for purchasing books ordered them from London. For these reasons, all the works of fiction published first in the period 1690– 1730 that were first printed in England were printed in London; none of them appeared first from provincial presses.84 Of the fourteen English cities that appear on imprints of fiction, only three—Newcastle, Manchester, and Berwick—appear on more than one title.85 Readers of fiction who lived outside of London would mostly have to depend on books shipped from the capital to individuals or shops in the countryside. Printing in locations other than London, therefore, should not be discounted, but it did not have a very significant impact on the type of fiction printed or its availability. Many works of fiction did not sell well enough to be reprinted at all (at least a quarter of the works of fiction printed in this period had no second edition), so there would have been little point in reprinting them in other cities. Given the very small share of the market that fiction occupied, and its relative expense and luxury status, there would not have been enough customers in a rural area such as Coventry for even a small print run of 250 copies of a work of fiction. The two ways in which readers in the provincial cities likely encountered fiction was not by brows56 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

ing books firsthand, but in newspaper advertisements and short chapbooks sold by itinerant salesmen.

The Rhetoric of Newspaper Advertisements Other than hanging signs outside of shops, the main way booksellers informed potential customers about available books was advertising.86 For fiction, this chiefly takes two forms: advertising books for sale in the front or back of printed texts by the same publisher, and newspaper advertisements. In the early eighteenth century, newspapers became the most widespread and inexpensive way to disseminate information. Costing between one and two pence, newspapers were cheap enough for many readers who could not afford to buy books. A growing system for distributing newspapers in London and elsewhere expanded their readership. As Raven points out, “The increasingly efficient despatch of London newspapers to country customers offered the surest advertising vehicle for the capital’s leading booksellers.”87 For readers outside of London, newspapers were the only way to learn about new books. Two significant changes in printed news led to its increased use for advertising books: the beginning of daily newspapers in 1702, and the Stamp Tax in 1712. Daily newspapers had more room for advertisements because there was less news to fill the pages than there would be if the newspaper had to cover several days or a week. The Stamp Tax assessed single-sheet papers ½ d per copy, but six-page papers were taxed as pamphlets, 2s per edition regardless of the number of copies printed.88 On an edition of 1,000 copies, a publisher would pay 41s 8d in tax for a single-sheet version instead of just 2s for the six-page version, so many printers changed their formats. Wanting to fill the extra pages, newspaper publishers sold the space for ads relatively cheaply: P. M. Handover explains that “the usual charge for an insertion was 2s 6d regardless of length, but in a sheet entirely devoted to advertisements, the Generous Advertiser, the method of charging by length was employed, 3d for fifty letters.”89 Such pricing benefited both parties: the booksellers could advertise a book at less than the cost of a single copy, and the newspaper publishers would earn the equivalent of selling several papers for each advertisement. Following the Stamp Tax, each ad was taxed 1s, which raised the prices charged to advertisers accordingly. What information was included in these book ads? James Tierney comments that “book advertisements frequently supply bibliographical data Fiction and the Book Trade · 57

pertinent to individual publications—the size of a book, the quality of its paper, whether it carries illustrations and by whom, the edition number, its cost, and whether or not it is being offered by subscription.”90 The material details of a particular edition are often specified, as in the advertisement for the sixth edition of the first volume of Robinson Crusoe, which states the book is “neatly printed in an Elzevir Letter, in 2 Vol. in 12mo, adorned with 14 Copper Plates.”91 The careful attention to the materials used to manufacture the book shows how books were physical objects of value: the quality and size of the paper and the number and type of illustrations are worth more than the content of the text. Advertisements also often list the titles of shorter works within a larger volume. The collected works of Scarron, for example, is advertised with a list of which works are included, as is A Select Collection of Novels.92 Some works of fiction are advertised individually. Love in Excess, for example, is said to be “beautifully printed in a neat Pocket Volume,” and a short verse by Lord Lansdowne on the power of love is printed in the advertisement.93 Ads often emphasize the title of the book by placing it in a larger or bolder font.94 Individual advertisements frequently include comments about the quality or interest of the work, as with the ad for “Mrs Barkers new Entertaining Romance, call’d Exilius.”95 More often, however, fiction is advertised in lists of books available from a particular bookseller. Although some booksellers like Wellington or John Newbery were very savvy about the audience for their advertisements, the lists that include works of fiction in the early part of the century are fairly random, with no apparent audience in mind.96 Tonson’s advertisement for Turkish Tales, for example, also lists “Cyder a Poem in two Books,” “Fontenelles Dialogues of the Dead in 3 Parts,” The Devil upon Two Sticks, The Royal Convert (a play), a two-volume edition of Cowley’s works, “Mr Echard’s History of England in one Vol. Folio,” and “the Revis’d Gardiner in 2 Vols.” These are very different types of books—fiction, poetry, drama, history, gardening—and the prices range from 1s 6d for the play to 25s for the history. The potential audiences have little in common with each other, and there is no clear connection between these works other than that they are “Books lately Printed for Jacob Tonson,” as the advertisement states. Notably, many works of fiction are not advertised in newspapers as being fiction, nor do advertisements generally emphasize the author’s name, except for collected works editions. Most ads for fiction give very little information about the content of the books except what is on the title page. 58 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

The primary strategy for attracting buyers is to list the title and emphasize that the book is new or original. Occasionally, a brief summary is included, but only when it is part of a long title that appears on the title page of the published book. Long titles are a form of advertising, attracting customers by providing a blurb about the book’s contents. An advertisement for Arabian Nights Entertainments states that it is “consisting of 1001 Stories, told by the Sultaness of the Indies to divert the Sultan from the Execution of a Boody [sic] Vow he had made, to marry a Lady every Day and have her [head] cut off next morning[,] . . which contain a better account of the Customs, Manners, and Religion of the Eastern Nations, viz. Tartars, Persians, and Indians, than is to be met in any Author hitherto published.”97 From this long title, a reader can learn the form of the book (“1001 Stories”), the premise for the stories, the information about other cultures that can be gained from reading them, and the originality of this work compared to similar texts. The advertisement’s emphasis on the “better account” of the “Eastern Nations” indicates that the bookseller thought the subject matter was more important than the fictionality of the work. The absence of two elements that are perhaps most interesting to critics of eighteenth-century novels—the separation of fiction from factual books, and a blurb or plot summary—indicates a significant difference between views of fiction in the twenty-first century and the eighteenth. Works of fiction in the early eighteenth century were advertised primarily as material objects, and their subject matter was more important than whether they were fiction or fact. The total lack of any appeal to literary merit shows that the booksellers did not think their customers were discriminating in their taste: the usual way to advertise a book was to emphasize that it was on an interesting subject and different from previous works on that topic. Fiction, at least, was not advertised to appeal to learned or cultivated audiences.

Special Fiction Types Chapbooks, jests, and fables might seem a strange inclusion in a study of early eighteenth-century fiction, but they were in fact the only types of fiction affordable by most readers in the period. Salzman’s dismissive assessment that “often the chapbooks were like Reader’s Digest versions of novels, shortened and simplified modifications of their originals” is typical of the treatment they receive in literary histories.98 Printed on two or three sheets and costing 6d or less, chapbooks were portable enough to be distributed Fiction and the Book Trade · 59

throughout the countryside by itinerant hawkers and cheap enough for people with few luxuries to purchase. Jest books and fables had the advantage of being composed of short tales, so they could be printed in almost any length and read aloud in public. Although these were affordable for people in the lower income strata, the subject matter and prose of such works were usually not unsophisticated. They were purchased and read even by people who could afford more expensive books, and so bridged the economic and social barriers that prevented most readers from accessing the longer narratives purchased by wealthier people. Chapbooks

Other than their size and length, chapbooks can be distinguished from other types of print by the use of woodcut illustrations long after most printers were using engraved plates for images. Chapbook printers also used black letter or a modified black letter type, usually for titles and proper nouns but sometimes for the entire text. These two throwbacks to sixteenth-century printing make the chapbooks appear very old-fashioned, and critics often perceive the texts (and their readers) to be similarly primitive. Houston, for example, assumes that “given the low levels of education available to the majority of the population, a medium of communication which used visual symbols rather than print or which kept the number of words to a palatable minimum was likely to reach much larger audiences than substantive literature.”99 In fact, a reader of a chapbook romance would have to have reading skills at least as good as a reader of a simple amorous tale. The vocabulary, syntax, and narrative complexity of many of the chapbook stories are just as difficult as the longer fictions from which they were derived. Unlike other types of fiction, chapbooks were distributed by itinerant peddlers (“chapmen”) who traveled to markets and fairs of rural towns throughout the country. This meant that chapbooks were available to readers on the geographic periphery as well as readers on the social and economic edges of the book-buying population. As early as 1618, chapmen were required to carry a license, and by the end of the seventeenth century the Stationers’ Company was printing almanacs for them that listed fairs, market towns, and toll roads as well as phases of the moon.100 Despite the traditional association of chapbooks with peasants, they were read by people from a variety of intellectual and social backgrounds: Samuel Pepys’s collection of “penny merriments” is one of the best surviving libraries of chap60 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

book fiction.101 We can speculate about who could have read chapbooks based on their availability and price, but there is little information about who really did read them.102 They were evidently popular throughout the eighteenth century, but they gave way to other types of cheap print in the nineteenth century. By the late nineteenth century they were, as John Ashton writes in 1882, “the relics of a happily past age,” and he voices a common opinion that “we, in this our day of cheap, plentiful, and good literature, can hardly conceive a time when in the major part of this country, and to the larger portion of its population, these little Chap-books were nearly the only mental pabulum offered.”103 Ashton’s comments demonstrate that he thinks the chapbooks were meant solely for readers poor in money and intellect. The range of the subject matter of the chapbooks speaks to their being “mental pabulum” for a majority of readers. Spufford divides the chapbooks into “merry,” “godly,” and “portraits of society,” using the terms found in seventeenth-century sale catalogues. Tessa Watt highlights the presentation of religion in “penny merriments,” “penny miscellanies,” and “penny godlinesses.”104 Such groupings reflect the main themes or subject matter contained in these chapbooks, regardless of the presentation of the story. Focusing on content may reflect how some people read these books, but overlooks the narrative complexities that indicate that chapbook readers were more sophisticated readers of fiction than many literary critics have acknowledged. An analysis of the narrative structures and content of these chapbooks will demonstrate their intricacy and relationship with longer works of fiction. The chapbooks with the simplest narrative structure are collections of tales with little or no connection. They might share a main character, but they do not relate to each other and could come in any sequence. The chapbook adaptation of Deloney’s The History of the Gentle Craft, for example, has three separate stories that connect only in “Shewing What Famous Men have been Shooe-Makers in Time past in this Land,” as the title page promises.105 The first story, about Sir Hugh’s love for Winnifred, ends with both their deaths; the next story begins with Queen Logria sending her sons Crispianus and Crispine out of town ahead of an approaching conqueror; and the final story describes how the shoemaker Simon Eyre became Lord Mayor of London. None of the three stories requires its characters to be shoemakers; the connection is entirely incidental to the plot. The address to the reader notes the discontinuous nature of the chapbook, telling the Fiction and the Book Trade · 61

reader to “read Nothing except you read All. And why so? Because the Beginning shews not the Middle, and the Middle shews not the latter End” (sig. A4v). This teasing advice acknowledges that although readers might expect an Aristotelian narrative with a distinct beginning, middle, and end, the discontinuous nature of the three stories defies this convention. Collections of tales might be more or less connected with an initial premise that dictates a general theme and tone, but they could be placed in any sequence and the characters do not change from the beginning to the end of the chapbook. The Merry Tales of the Madmen of Gotham (1690), for example, is a series of twenty short tales of foolish behavior with little moral or point. The characters are not individualized and are completely interchangeable. Similarly, the premise of The Pleasant History of Cawwood the Rook—that the eagle is leaving the other birds for a few months and needs to find them a temporary replacement leader—sets up the rationale for the rest of the chapbook in which different birds each make a short speech with a moral. These tales do not build to a logical conclusion, nor do they refer to each other, and they can be read in any order. Some chapbooks have stories with a thematically connected narrative: a single main character or problem, but an episodic or digressive storyline. The twenty-four-page chapbook version of Don Quixote contains some of the most famous scenes from the full version of the work (Quixote tilting at windmills, Sancho tossed in a blanket by an innkeeper, etc.) but does not connect them in any logical way. The chapbook History of Fortunatus is similarly disconnected.106 Fortunatus travels without any clear purpose from Cyprus to England to France, each time having new adventures that do not relate to the previous events in the plot. When he marries and has two sons, the story would seem to come to a natural end, but instead we are suddenly told that “Fortunatus altering his former Resolutions, now began of think of travelling into other Countries where he had not been” (sig. B3v). There is no cohesive narrative arc or internal logic to Fortunatus’s decisions. The chapbooks with continuous narratives—that is, a sequential plotline that is neither episodic nor digressive—are perhaps closest in form to those works that resemble modern novels. One of the most elaborate of these is The Famous and Delightful History of the Golden Eagle, in which an ailing king sends his three sons to bring him the mythical Golden Eagle to cure his illness. The two older brothers abandon the youngest, Innocentine, in a wood, but he is helped by a hermit. Eventually he sees his brothers attacking a lady, so he saves her and she helps him get the eagle and cure his 62 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

father. The use of two simultaneous storylines—Innocentine’s encounter with the hermit, and his brothers’ meeting the lady—would seem to be taking the plot in two different directions. The attack on the lady, however, is described twice, connecting Innocentine’s adventures with those of his brothers. The first description follows Innocentine, who “espied two Villains about to ravish a Lady” (sig. B3r). The narrator only reveals who the “Villains” are at the end of the scene, when the characters recognize each other. In the second description, the reader is given the brothers’ perspective: they would have succeeded in attacking the lady “had not an unexpected Knight passed by, who hearing the Shrieks of one in Distress, boldly approached to place, where he found these Villains endeavouring to rob her of her Chastity, whom they ’spying, perceived him to be their Brother” (sig. C1r). The “unexpected Knight” is not revealed to be Innocentine until the brothers identify him. The History of the Golden Eagle thus demonstrates that even chapbooks employed multiple perspectives, narrators who conceal relevant information, and simultaneous plots. Many other chapbooks with continuous narratives are either derived from ballads or are abridgments of longer works of prose fiction. Some of these, like Bateman’s Tragedy or George Barnwell, include a ballad version printed in the chapbook after the prose story.107 Of those derived from longer works of prose fiction, both Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Essex and The English Rogue have first-person narrators, while almost all of the works originally written as chapbooks have third-person narrators (even those telling the “life” of a particular character).108 Through these abridgments, readers of chapbooks were exposed to a variety of narrative techniques usually employed only in longer works of fiction. Among these are the individualization of characters and the insertion of dialogue. Most characters are fairly two-dimensional, but some are brought to life through their unusual actions. Long Meg, for example, is different from other women in chapbooks because she performs a traditionally masculine role.109 As a servant, she beats the men who refuse to pay her mistress her due, and after she knocks French soldiers off of the walls of Boulogne, she receives a pension of 8d per day for life. Meg’s character is apparently based on a real person, and the details of her exploits help to convey her gender-bending defiance better than a description could.110 A more complex case is Johnny Armstrong, “a brave and jolly Man . . . who made it his Business to keep up the good and laudible Customs of Charity, supplying the Poor with Cloaths and Food, not denying to any that asked.”111 During Fiction and the Book Trade · 63

war with the Scots, however, an officer tells the king that Johnny has a lot of money but no land. The king concludes that “he must live by Plunder and Robbery,” and so invites Johnny to Edinburgh where he and his men are attacked and killed (11). In this case, the reader is privy to information about Johnny’s real character that demonstrates the falsity of the officer who informs on him to the king. A reader of this chapbook would have to be able to distinguish between trustworthy and unreliable sources of information within a fictional world. Dialogue is relatively uncommon, except in those chapbooks that are derived from longer works of fiction. Most conversations are reported secondhand: a third-person narrator summarizes the content of the conversation without providing actual dialogue. When dialogue is used, it is often in a formal exchange of speeches. In The Blind Beggar of Bednal-Green, for example, each speech is at least four lines in length, and the speeches are separated by more narration (that is, they do not respond directly to each other).112 Dialogue, where it appears, does little to increase the verisimilitude of the fiction. Chapbooks often exhibit extremes of chivalry and virtue, lewd humor, or even seemingly clandestine topics such as mocking religion or excessive violence. A number of the chivalric stories, including Guy of Warwick and Sir Bevis of Southampton, derive from medieval legends.113 The heroes fight giants and “Saracens” for the sake of true love and Christianity. Some newer tales imitate the medieval romance style: in The Famous History of the Valiant London-Prentice (1693), the hero wants to fight the Turks so he can “let them know what English Valour was” (sig. B2v). One of the most interesting strategies employed in these chivalric stories is found in the chapbook of Hero and Leander, which imitates the massive French romances of Scudéry by piling subordinate clauses on top of each other.114 The address to the reader explains that this was done “so that it may be accounted, the perfection of History, dressed in a Method, that cannot but please, wherein the Passions of Lovers are expressed to the heighth, and the various dangers they meet withal, and strugle with, and although Virtuous Love be sometimes Unfortunate, it never misses of praise, and due commiseration, and moves a generous compassion in the hearts” (sig. A1v). Such an opaque writing style requires considerable reading ability, and only readers familiar with the longer romances would appreciate the imitation. Other chapbook fictions promoting virtue take a more exemplary moral approach, rather than invoking the conventions of chivalric romance. The 64 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

story of George Barnwell, who steals his master’s money and murders his uncle to pay a prostitute, is meant to demonstrate that “there is nothing more destructive to Youth, than to be ensnared by a Harlot,” and that “however pleasing it may seem at first, it ends in Bitterness, and most commonly in a shameful Death.”115 Indeed, this is precisely what happens to Barnwell at the end of the story. Some chapbooks tack on a moral message to a story that is otherwise purely entertaining. A reader of Fryer Bacon might be surprised, given his sacrilegious experiments in magic, to find that at the very end of the chapbook he “burnt his Books before them, to hinder others from doing it, shut himself up in a Cell . . . advising the Scholars to study Holy Things, and not mind the Vanity of the World: at two Years end he died a true Penitent.”116 The point of Fryer Bacon is not his repentance, but his entertaining actions—yet the story concludes with Bacon “a true Penitent.” While this moral might be merely pro forma, the fact the writer felt the need to include it at all indicates that some readers would expect fiction to have a didactic purpose. Fryer Bacon is also part of a tradition in the chapbooks of mocking established religion, especially Catholicism. Bacon apparently learns his magic while studying under the auspices of “the Society of Augustine Fryers” who pay for his education at Oxford (sig. A2v). While Bacon is a legitimate cleric who engages in forbidden activities, other chapbooks feature fools who impersonate clergymen. John Frank, for example, is mistaken for a minister and “he begins to preach, as he call’d it, speaking such gibberish and nonsense as did amaze the people: some turned over the leaves of their books backward and forward to find the Text, others listned to hear what he said, some thought that he had spoken Latin & Greek, that they could not understand.”117 The inability of his listeners to distinguish between gibberish and a sermon implies that most sermons are no better than gibberish, and that foreign languages only mystify the audience. An opposite case can be found in the tale of Sheffery Morgan, who is supposed to be a preacher but is so foolish that instead of a sermon he tells an anecdote about tearing his breeches while leaping over a style.118 His foolishness is readily apparent to his audience, and the jab at the clergy comes from the fact that a fool like Sheffery has supposedly received the proper training to be a minister. Such open criticisms of religion and the established church show that the chapbooks were not censored by any religious body. The lewd humor found in some chapbooks further highlights the lack of restrictions on their content. Tom Ladle gets his nickname when his mother, Fiction and the Book Trade · 65

whom he has caught cuckolding her husband with the barber, cries out “that he had shit in the Ladle, for which he was whipped.”119 The next time he catches them “engaged in a Love-duel,” he tells a crowd of people about it and they laugh (17). There are no consequences, serious or lighthearted, for Tom’s betrayal of his mother or her adultery. Tom Tram, another trickster, leads a group of prisoners in singing bawdy songs for the mayor and gets even with a group of gossips by feeding them “purging Comfits.”120 He then laughs at their vomiting and their embarrassment when their husbands accuse them of drinking too much liquor. Tom Tram’s use of vomiting agents to punish gossiping women is indicative of a larger trend in the chapbooks toward extraordinary violence and cruelty. Spufford rightly notes that the “‘small merry books’ . . . revel in slapstick and in satire and in the misadventures of unfortunates. The quality that they totally lack to a modern reader is compassion” (185). “Misadventures” and “satire” seem not strong enough to describe the extreme violence in some of the chapbook tales. At one point Tom Tram locks a group of gypsies in a house and sets it on fire (sig. A8r). The writer does not evidently expect such actions to diminish the reader’s sympathy for the main character, as he continues to have more foolish adventures without any repercussions for his cruelty. Bateman’s Tragedy ends with the jilted hero hanging himself in his beloved’s bridal chamber. This, the narrator drily explains, “Discomposed the Mirth of the Wedding, and made the Bride exceeding melancholy” (16). Thomas of Reading is boiled alive in a cauldron of hot water by robbers.121 Such violence does not seem unusual to any of the characters in the chapbook. The bloody relish with which battle scenes are described indicates that readers were not expected to be overly sensitive. The story of Chevy-Chase begins when Earl Douglas hunts illegally in the territory of Earl Piercies, “who kill’d the King of Scots by running his Spear into his Eye.”122 The ensuing battle is so gruesome that “the Ground was cover’d with Dead, and dying Men, Arrows, shivers of Spears, broken Swords, and streams of Blood; nothing was heard but confus’d Noises, Groans, and Cries” (sig. B1v). The ballad version that accompanies the prose in the chapbook is equally bloody but more figurative: “The[y] fought until they both did sweat, / with dwords [sic] of tempered Steel, / Until the Blood like drops of Rain, / the trickling down did feel” (sig. C2v). This is very far from the gentility of English heroism that Addison emphasizes with his argument “that the Sentiments in that Ballad are extreamly Natural and Poetical, and full of 66 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

the Majestick Simplicity which we admire in the greatest of the ancient Poets.”123 Both the ballad and the chapbook depict the battle, but the chapbook is much more ghastly. It seems to be catering to readers who like gore rather than those who care about the nobility and heroism of war. In short, chapbooks were much more complex than has been acknowledged, both in their readership and in their narrative techniques. The chapbooks’ use of narrative elements usually associated with the “novel” in the modern sense indicates that their readers were not significantly less literate than readers of longer fictions. In fact, the main distinguishing factor between readers of chapbooks and readers of novels was the amount they could afford to spend, not what they could read. Some readers of longer fictions evidently also read chapbooks, but many readers of chapbooks could not afford to purchase the longer works. Chapbooks have a closer tie to the longer fictions than the short, choppy tales of jest books and fables. Jest Books

Jest books, like chapbooks, may seem out of place in a history of fiction: jests are often extremely short, with little or no character development and very minimal plots. Linda Woodbridge comments that “it would be pointless to wax rigid about what counts as a jest book or draw firm lines around the genre—jest books often pilfered tales from other genres or oral tradition.”124 They contain some narrative elements that signify their connection with longer prose narratives, including distinct characterization, description of actions, and particular settings. However, with a few exceptions, they do not have much detail or continuity. Many are about different unrelated exploits of a single character, and some have no individualized characters at all. Collections of jests are a mixture of very short stories and puns, amusing situations or contrasts, and witty sayings of various sorts. The main point is generally the punch line, not the situation or story. For example, in one jest two students debate the nature of the man in the moon and decide that “When the Moon was at Full, then there was a Gentleman in her; but when she appear’d with two Horns, then he might swear there was a Citizen in her.”125 Cuckold jokes, jabs at the wealthy or elite, and anecdotes about fools are especially common. The type of humor found in jest books of the seventeenth century seems to have remained popular through the eighteenth. Moreover, as Simon Dickie convincingly argues, “Modern readers will be Fiction and the Book Trade · 67

struck by the callousness of these jokes, their frank delight in human misery.”126 Jests are designed for an audience sharing the sensibilities of chapbook readers: appreciating violence and cruelty against those who deviate physically or mentally from the norm. Dickie’s argument that “none of these nasty witticisms comes from the cheapest or crudest forms of print,” but instead “most jestbooks were produced for middle- and upper-class readers,” changes the way we might view humor in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries (20). Unlike the chapbooks, which might (arguably) be intended for the lower classes, even if upper-class readers also purchased them, many jest books were priced out of reach for the poorest readers.127 Their short, disconnected nature makes sense given that collections of jests were not meant to be read cover to cover. The title of Coffee-House Jests (1677) suggests that one use of jest books might be to read them aloud in a social setting. The very short length of the anecdotes and witticisms means that reading several in a row quickly becomes tedious. Richard Neve’s The Merry Companion (1716), a book of card tricks and sleight of hand, gives forty-three cryptic “rules” for making jests using wordplay, such as “By speaking of Things as if they were where they are not” or “By denying a Thing, and yet at the same Time affirming it” (175–76). Jests are clearly understood here to mean jokes or puns, and have little to do with narrative. A few jests, mainly those that are part of a collection focusing on a single character, have more narrative development than is usual in the genre and borrow techniques from fiction. Scogin’s Jests have some narrative elements: they are relatively long (a full octavo page instead of a short paragraph), and there is some continuity between them that dictates a chronological sequence.128 The first jest, for example, tells how Scogin tricks his chambermate into running around naked so that everyone thinks him mad; the second jest begins, “After this, Scogin and his Chamber-fellow lacked Money,” so they decide to perform more tricks together (3). While the two jests do not depend on each other and could be understood individually, the transitions between them and the consistency of the characters indicates that the writer imagined they might be read in sequence. Three other jests involving Scogin seem as if they might be sequential: titled “How Scogin told a Shoemaker he was not at home,” “How the aforesaid shoemaker gave Scogin forty shillings to have his house made greater,” and “How the Shoomaker would have made his house greater, and brake down the outside of it” (35–36). However, the content of the three jests makes them seem separate: the second begins, “There was a shoomaker,” as though he 68 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

had not been mentioned before (35). The consistency of Scogin allows for some character development as he proceeds to more complex tricks for greater rewards, ending with his winning the friendship of the king and being buried at Westminster (39–40). In this way, Scogin’s life introduces a chronological sequence. Even the disconnected anecdotal jests share some characteristics with narrative. They are clearly fictional, and the vagueness about characters and situations described allows the reader to imagine further details. Writers of these anecdotes are not pretending that they are true, and readers would presumably have understood that the tales were not relating to real life. Jests are therefore one of the only types of fiction that filtered into mainstream culture as fiction, without pretending to be another type of (potentially factual) writing. They are also, significantly, meant only for entertainment: the prefaces to jest books almost invariably stress their “pleasant” qualities, with no pretense to making a moral point.129 Short tales with morals were generally not jests, but fables. Fables

Scholars of fables rarely discuss them as fiction, instead commingling prose and verse versions and defining “fable” according to content rather than form.130 Criticism on fables chiefly focuses on Aesopian animal tales with explicit morals. In fact, the eighteenth-century use of the term “fable” shows that it relates much more to fiction in this period than it does in its modern meanings. The first two definitions listed in Johnson’s Dictionary are “A feigned story intended to enforce some moral precept” and “A fiction in general.”131 According to these definitions, “fable” might indicate any piece of fiction, regardless of its content. Like jests, fables were understood to be fictional, and frequently (but not always) had certain characteristics regarding both content and form. The fictional quality of the story was mitigated by its moral point: as La Motte says in his Discourse on Fable, “Some certain Truth must be proposed which we design should be perfectly understood; and this is an Advantage peculiar to Fable. . . . This Truth ought to be most commonly a moral one; that is, useful and subservient to the Conduct of Human Life.”132 This is a unique understanding of fiction and fact: that “truth” can be a moral point made even in the guise of an obvious fiction. The idea that the moral “should be perfectly understood” distinguishes fables from other types of fiction with applicable morals, such as spiritual Fiction and the Book Trade · 69

autobiography. Many fables, including La Motte’s, have an explicit moral stated outright after the characters in the fable learn the lesson. Rather than claiming that the fiction is actually true, as many novels do, fables are obviously untrue but convey moral “truths.” Of the original English fables, many are Aesopian—that is, they are short and feature animal characters who speak to each other, making a point about ethics or proper behavior. The deceptively simplistic stories have long been thought to be meant for children. Thomas Noel remarks that “all evidence points to the conclusion that the fable enjoyed scant literary status in the seventeenth century.”133 This is not entirely the case, at least not without qualification: Dryden and Fénelon both wrote fables, and La Fontaine was so well-respected that La Motte calls him “our Æsop, Phædrus, and Pilpay. . . . What he has left us to glean after him is scarce worth the while.”134 Unlike chapbooks or jests, fables could appeal both to simple and educated readers, and their short length meant they could be produced in brief pamphlets or thick volumes.135 Fables were not, therefore, mere animal tales for children or unsophisticated adults. As Annabel Patterson has argued at length, a large number of English Aesopian fables of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries make political as well as ethical points.136 One collection of fables, for example, includes such lessons as “When a Prince hath broken his Oaths, and thereby lost his Reputation with his Subjects, they ought never to regard any future Assurances he can give them,” alongside mundane recommendations to listen to one’s elders and always tell the truth.137 The fable form seems especially adapted for political commentary: since the main tale is ostensibly fictional, a writer can frame criticisms in terms of warnings and so avoid the appearance of censuring the government while still making the point clear. La Motte’s fables, which are supposedly “for the Instruction of Princes,” do exactly this. Fables were a special form that enabled writers to critique the government or social institutions from behind the safety of a fictional mask.

Intellectual Property and Copyright of Fiction One advantage to chapbooks, jests, fables, and the like was that the copyrights were often very cheap. In the early eighteenth century, authors had very little control over their own texts. Booksellers had nearly complete power over the buying and selling of copyrights, and once a bookseller 70 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

bought a copyright, the author could not limit further printing of the work. Except for very famous writers like Dryden and Pope, authors had little bargaining power in the sale of their works to booksellers and were often forced to sell copyrights at very low prices. In the period between 1690 and 1730, three important pieces of legislation—the expiration of the Licensing Act (1695), the Statute of Anne (1710), and the Stamp Act (1712)—led to the collapse of the monopoly of the Stationers’ Company and allowed greater development of printing outside London. Throughout this period, there were always booksellers who tried to avoid the legal restrictions by printing pirated copies of books, or using fiction to avoid printing potentially libelous material outright. Here I shall consider how booksellers used the laws to their advantage and the means by which they tried to circumvent them. Copyright laws encouraged the reprinting of older works and translations over original English works. Scholars of English copyright history have generally agreed that an important feature of copyright discussions in this period was the concept of books as property beyond the cost of their materials. However, they disagree as to how far publishers considered the physical books or their intellectual contents to be the protected asset.138 Mark Rose and Joseph Loewenstein argue convincingly that authors’ rights were first established in the legislation that brought about the Statute of Anne, while Ronan Deazley makes the equally persuasive point that the Statute of Anne was chiefly for the publishers’ benefit, but that the legislation that followed it established authors’ rights to control printings of their own works.139 From the booksellers’ point of view, the main issue seems to be the probability that a work would sell: they might be willing to invest more capital in a work by a famous author, since it was more likely to recuperate the initial investment and turn a profit than a work by an obscure writer. The sale of copyright, therefore, depended not on the intellectual value of the text in question but in the potential for selling the printed books—hence, why the right to print Bibles was so hotly contested and expensive.140 For fiction, the stakes for buying and selling copyright were relatively low. Most works of fiction had no guaranteed customer base, and so booksellers would be unwilling to invest much more than the material cost of printing the books. The few examples of works of fiction that sold very well—such as Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Fénelon’s Telemachus, or Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe—were pirated and abridged as much as the bestselling books in other genres. Most works of fiction, however, would not be worth Fiction and the Book Trade · 71

the bother of pirating since they were not popular enough to sell out even their first edition: approximately 25 percent of the works of fiction printed in the period 1690–1730 were only printed once. Given such a little guarantee of success, booksellers did not fight over most fiction copyrights. The impact of the Statute of Anne on fiction publishing in particular would be difficult to isolate from changes in the whole book trade, but two important yet often overlooked parts of the statute do have particular consequences in fiction: the stipulation against booksellers charging exorbitant prices, and the provisions respecting reprints and imports from Scotland and Ireland. The regulation of prices states “That if any Bookseller or Booksellers, Printer or Printers, shall . . . set a Price upon, or sell, or expose to Sale, any Book or Books at such a Price or Rate as shall be conceived by any Person or Persons to be too high and unreasonable; It shall and may be lawful for any Person or Persons to make Complaint thereof ” to any of several governing lords, who can “send for, summon, or call before him or them such Bookseller or Booksellers, Printer or Printers, and to examine and enquire of the Reason of the Dearness and Inhancement of the Price or Value of such Book or Books.” If the price is found to be unreasonable, they can “reform and redress the same, and to limit and settle the Price of every such printed Book and Books.”141 The need to regulate prices reflects the high cost of books, and may be one reason that the prices of fiction are tied so closely to the length of the volume and the cost of materials and production. For learned texts, there may be more justification for a higher price based on the value of the contents, but for fiction the contents are not worth as much as the paper and printing. The second aspect of the Statute of Anne that relates to fiction has to do with reprinting books outside of England. The statute states that a bookseller cannot “print, reprint or import, or cause to be printed, reprinted or imported, any such Book or Books, without the Consent of the Proprietor or Proprietors thereof first had and obtained in Writing,” and that “if any Person or Persons incur the Penalties contained in this Act, in that Part of Great Britain called Scotland, they shall be recoverable by any Action before the Court of Session there.”142 The fact that importing a book or commissioning it to be printed and then importing it was as much a violation of copyright as printing it in London reflects the fear of the London booksellers that their trade was being undercut by unscrupulous publishers. The provision that extends the law to Scotland but not Ireland had significant consequences for both in how far they could engage in reprint trade. 72 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

Pollard points out that “no Irish Act followed the British Copyright Act of 1709, and the trade continued—safely and legally—to supply the home market with reprints of works first published in Britain.”143 While many works of fiction were not popular enough to warrant reprinting, some certainly were. One consequence of the statute’s limiting the term of copyright to fourteen years was that older English works and foreign works were cheaper than new English works to reprint (for booksellers who did not already own the copyright). Almost a quarter of the works of fiction printed in the period 1690–1730 were first printed earlier, and another quarter were translations of foreign texts. The statute does not specifically address books by foreign authors, but in practice a new translation seems to have counted as a new book. This gave booksellers a way to acquire copyrights to texts by very popular authors (Cervantes, Scarron, D’Aulnoy, etc.) at the price of a hack translator. The popularity of reprints and translations are a general trend; there does not seem to be any change in reaction to the laws of 1710. This supports Deazley’s assessment of the statute as “a miserable havock” that was impossible to enforce and inspired much litigation in the later part of the eighteenth century (46). One way law did affect fiction was the influence of libel on the production of “secret histories.” Fredrick Seaton Siebert argues convincingly that “no single method of restricting the press was as effective as the law of seditious libel as it was developed and applied by the common-law courts in the later part of the seventeenth century.”144 Perhaps the most effective aspect of libel law was that it was self-regulating: booksellers would be very reluctant to publish books that could get them in trouble, so authors would have little reason to write seditious books. By disguising libelous or scandalous material as a fictional story, however, a writer could make biting criticisms without repercussions. Occasionally such attacks inspired critical reactions, as happens with Letters from the Living to the Living (1703), a collection of fictional letters from different types of people and heads of state. An article in the Observator complains that “Besides the Callumnies on the Present Government, these Letters are fill’d with such horrid and execrable Oaths and Curses, with a mixture of Fulsom Bawdry, that is not to be suffer’d in a Christian Country. . . . I wonder, Sir, that the Authors, Printers and Publishers of this Book also, have met with no publick Resentment.”145 Of course, this very article is just such “publick Resentment.” This critique indicates that both political criticism and profanity could subject a text to Fiction and the Book Trade · 73

censure, and that “Authors, Printers and Publishers” could be held equally responsible. In such circumstances, it is little wonder that so many potentially scandalous texts were published anonymously and without naming booksellers in the imprint. Many of the works in the “secret history” vein were less obviously about real events than Letters from the Living to the Living, and so were more easily able to escape criticism. Bullard claims that “secret history is designed to shock and outrage its readers,” since most readers would immediately see the application to real-life events.146 The elaborate construction of a fictional world, however, seems to belie this assumption. The description of “Albigion,” at the beginning of The Secret History of Queen Zarah and the Zarazians (1705), shows a world of political awareness where “Prentice Boys assume the Air of Statesmen e’er yet they have learn’d the Mystery of Trade” and “Carmen and Coblers over Coffee draw up Articles of Peace and War” (2). Details of this sort add to the entertaining quality of the work. Some secret histories, such as The Cabinet Open’d, or The Secret History of the Amours of Madam de Maintenon, with the French King (1690), are more clearly about real people, whether the events described are true or not. Scandal fiction using real names can leave the author open to charges of libel, so these works are almost always about foreigners or dead rulers.147 The law, in this way, encouraged the production of fictional texts over tales of current events—though the real-life application of the story was sometimes blatantly obvious. As should by now be fairly evident, the print culture world had tremendous influence on what fiction was written and sold, and who could purchase and read it. In this period, fiction was not a serious literary art form; so if it was not profitable, it was not worth printing. For this reason, fiction gives us greater insight into the business side of literary production than other forms of writing do. Thus far, scholars and critics of early eighteenth-century fiction have largely ignored the forces of the print industry, instead viewing the fiction produced as indicating the individual artistic decisions of the authors. As the following chapter will demonstrate, authors exerted far less control over their works than critics have assumed.

74 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

3 Authors and Anonymous Publication

s Intellectual property arrangements in the early eighteenth century clearly favored publishers over authors. But what do we mean by an “author” of fiction? As I shall demonstrate, in the period 1690–1730, approximately 70 percent of the fiction published did not name the real author on the title page. Fiction was not unique in this regard, and many genres, such as political pamphlets, were commonly published without authors. Anonymous texts have received little attention in literary histories, but their high number indicates that anonymity was significant to how contemporary readers encountered fiction. Even scholars writing on anonymity frequently approach it from the standpoint of attribution, as though identifying the author is necessary to reading the text. How did eighteenth-century readers, booksellers, and writers of fiction understand authorship given the high number of works that were anonymous? The modern concept of a “professional” fiction writer was relatively unknown in the period, but publishers were certainly aware of the economic benefits of using an author’s name to sell expensive editions. In the early eighteenth century, writing fiction was much more a business than an artistic endeavor, and both writers and publishers employ the idea of the “author” primarily for selling books.

Authors on the Title Page Scholars have long noted the practice of anonymous publication in the eighteenth century. Robert J. Griffin argues that “anonymity during this period [before Jane Austen] . . . was at least as much a norm as signed authorship.”1 75

Anonymity in the Renaissance, particularly in manuscript circulation, has been studied by Marcy L. North and Harold Love.2 No one, however, has systematically studied anonymity and the use of author names on title pages in the fiction of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. As a brief statistical analysis will make clear, the degree of anonymity of fiction is startling, especially considering that this is the age that supposedly saw the emergence of the professional writer and the rise of the novel. The bibliographies of fiction compiled by Mish and McBurney misleadingly imply that most fiction lists authors’ names. Including reprints (counted once) and translations, the two bibliographies together list 437 works of fiction in the period 1690–1730. Of these, 139 (32 percent) are anonymous; just 6 (1 percent) have initials, a pseudonym, or another tagline such as “by a Lady”; and 292 (67 percent) have named authors. Neither Mish nor McBurney distinguishes between works that identify their authors on the title pages, and works that have been attributed later from other evidence. A reader of these bibliographies is therefore left with the impression that most fiction had identifiable, known authors, and that we can be confident in these attributions. In fact, a much higher percentage of the fiction was originally anonymous. Table 9 depicts the use of author names and pseudonyms on title pages, categorized according to new fiction, reprints, and translations. As this table demonstrates, approximately 50 percent of the fiction has no indication of the author on the title page, and at least a further 20 percent has another tagline or pseudonym (and so is functionally anonymous). This means that a strong majority of the works of fiction—at least 70 percent— did not identify the author at all. To a reader in the early eighteenth century, the world of fiction was largely a world of anonymous publication. The high use of taglines and pseudonyms is particularly interesting because these techniques indicate a deliberate attempt to disguise authorship, rather than simply omit it. Alternatives to the author’s real name fall into four main categories: an obscuring of the author’s name using initials; a pseudonym or the name of a fictional character from the work; a tagline linking the author to another work supposedly by the same author; or a generic phrase standing in for the author’s name (e.g., “a Lady”). At least twenty works of fiction have just the author’s initials on the title page. While one might expect that initials would mainly be used for very obscure authors, this is not the case. The seventh edition of Benjamin Keach’s

76 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

Table 9. Authors’ names on title pages of fiction 1690–1730, by type

T YPE OF FICTION

New fiction Reprints Translations

NAME ON TITLE PAGE

OTHER TAGLINE OR PSEUDONYM

NOTHING ON TITLE PAGE

NAME INSIDE (NOT ON THE TITLE PAGE)

47 (17%) 14 (16%) 42 (31%)

65 (24%) 19 (22%) 23 (17%)

139 (51%) 48 (55%) 61 (45%)

7 (3%) 5 (6%) 4 (3%)

ADDITIONAL WORKS

TOTAL

22 (8%) 8 (9%) 6 (4%)

275 88 137

Total

475

Note: Works that are both reprints and translations are counted in each category, so the numbers do not add up exactly to 475. The percentage refers to the number out of the total for each category in the right-hand column. Each reprint is only counted for the first occurrence in the period (not later editions). “Additional works” are those not on EEBO or ECCO (and so the title pages were unavailable). Some works appear in more than one category.

The Travels of True Godliness (1700), for example, has only “B. K.” on the title page, though the preface is signed “B. Keach.” This is not simply the practice of the printer, for Nathaniel Boddington came out with the third edition of Keach’s The Progress of Sin that same year and put “Benjamin Keach” on the title page. Despite Keach’s popularity, his name did not have enough importance to advertise it on the title page. A similar usage of initials occurs with some of the chapbook versions of Thomas Deloney’s fictions: both the sixteenth edition of The Pleasant and Princely History of the Gentle Craft (1690) and the fourteenth edition of The Pleasant History of John Winchcomb [ Jack of Newbery] (c. 1690) have only the initials “T. D.” on the title page, and no further information about the author inside. The printers of these texts apparently thought they would sell based on their titles, not their authors. The practice of using a pseudonym is sometimes difficult to evaluate, since we have no way of knowing if an otherwise unknown author is a real person or not. Such is the case for a work published under the name “Mrs. Sarah Butler,” which McBurney suggests is a pseudonym for Charles Gildon (named at the end of the dedication).3 This may or may not be true, but in lieu of further evidence of a Mrs. Sarah Butler, we will probably never know for sure. One contra-fiction device that occurs regularly is the use of a character’s name as a pseudonym to convey the impression that the work is fac-

Authors and Anonymous Publication · 77

tually true. This was famously done on the title page of The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719), which states that it is “by Himself,” but other works throughout this period have similar claims.4 That same year, The Adventures, and Surprizing Deliverances, of James Dubourdieu and His Wife also claims to be “by Himself ” on the title page, though the name Ambrose Evans appears after the first story, apparently as author (102). The Voyages, Dangerous Adventures, and Imminent Escapes of Captain Richard Falconer (1720) employed the same device, going so far as to have the dedication and preface signed “R. Falconer” (vi, viii). There are no indications that the title character did not write these works, which makes determining whether a work is indeed fictional very difficult. Pseudonyms that encourage the reader to believe the work is real are often accompanied by claims to truth in the preface, and frequently use genre labels that do not necessarily denote only fiction. Many taglines capitalize on the author’s reputation if not name by linking a new work to other works by the same person. This is different from initials or pseudonyms, where the publisher is trying to obscure the author’s real name. The title page of The Pagan Prince (1690), for example, says that it is “By the Author of the Secret History of King Charles II and K. James II.”5 This indicates that the printer thought that someone who enjoyed The Secret History would want to read more by the same author. Such techniques make even better business sense when linked to a work that was popular. Take, for example, Madame D’Aulnoy’s The Ingenious and Diverting Letters of the Lady———’s Travels into Spain, first translated into English in 1691. There was enough demand for it that five editions had appeared by 1703, and it stayed more or less in print for the rest of the eighteenth century. A number of other works try to capitalize on its success by linking to it on their title pages. Memoirs of the Court of France (1692) states that it is by “Madam L. M. D., Author of the Voyage into Spain,” and The Present Court of Spain (1693) is “by the Ingenious Lady———Author of The Memoirs and Travels into Spain.” Even the translation of D’Aulnoy’s collected works, The Diverting Works of the Countess D’Anois (1707), reminds the reader that she is “Author of the Ladies Travels to Spain.” These are all printed for different booksellers, and so they must have independently seen the economic benefit to reminding potential buyers that D’Aulnoy was the author of a successful work. In some cases the author’s name is omitted altogether and only the title of another work appears, as with The Consolidator (1705),

78 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

which is “By the Author of The True-born English Man.” Such statements on title pages demonstrate that publishers of fiction saw author names, in some cases, as indicating a similarity of style or content between works and as a potential marketing device. The most common way of obscuring authorship without omitting it altogether is to use a generic tagline that indicates very little about the real author. At least thirty-five works of fiction employ a term referring to a particular quality of the supposed author. Some add validity to a claim to truth, as with A Journal of the Plague Year (1722), which is “by a Citizen who continued all the while in London,” or A Full and True Account of a Horrid and Barbarous Revenge by Poison, on the Body of Mr. Edmund Curll, Bookseller (1716), by “an Eye Witness.” In many cases, however, generic taglines simply add credibility to the author by such terms as “By a Person of Quality” or “By a Person of Honour.”6 Some indicate the gender of the supposed author by saying they are by “a Lady” or “a Young Nobleman.”7 As Raven has demonstrated regarding the same labels used on fiction in the late eighteenth century, such taglines cannot be trusted to give any accurate information about the real authors.8 For some works they may attempt to indicate that the material inside is appropriate for female readers or those “of Quality.” Such labels show more about the ideal audience than the real author. Among the works that do identify the author, translations are approximately twice as likely as reprints or new fiction to have the author’s name on the title page. This may be because foreign authors had already established a reputation elsewhere, and so their names were recognizable and marketable. The English translation of Artamenes, Or, The Grand Cyrus states that it is “Written By that Famous Wit of France, Monsieur de Scudery,” clearly capitalizing on his established fame, though the work was in fact by Madeleine de Scudéry. Similarly, Scarron was well-known enough that the title page of the anonymous The Adventures of Covent Garden (1699) states it is “In Imitation of Scarron’s City Romance.” The foreign authors who were translated were mainly already famous in their own language. Relatively few works that are anonymous on the title page reveal the author’s name inside, though occasionally initials or an alternative tagline appears on the title page and a full name is printed after the dedication or preface.9 Here the object seems not to be to hide the author’s identity, but to keep unimportant information off the title page.

Authors and Anonymous Publication · 79

Even more surprising is the fact that these numbers are fairly consistent for the whole of this forty-year period. Griffin has convincingly argued that the Statute of Anne did not influence the use of authors’ names on title pages.10 One might still assume that over time, as more works of fiction were printed, the percentage that included an author’s name would increase. Table 10 shows that this is not the case. This table demonstrates that except for a bump in the 1720s (mainly due to a few authors publishing short works, like Haywood), there is little increase in the percentage of texts that have authors’ names on the title pages. In fact, the percentage of texts in every category of authorial attribution is startlingly consistent over the full forty-year period, though in the 1690s a relatively high percentage has nothing about authorship on the title page. There is no apparent change over time in the practice of identifying authors on title pages and, consequently, the concept of fiction as a type of literary work whose authors are important. Indeed, the statistics I have given here coincide almost exactly with Raven’s findings that “over 80 per cent of all novel titles published in the 1770s and 1780s were published anonymously.”11 In other words, the frequency of the appearance of an author’s real name on the title page of a work of fiction remains the same at the end of the eighteenth century as it is at the beginning—despite changes in copyright law, publishing practices, and the supposed emergence of both the novel and the professional author. Table 10. Authors’ names on title pages of fiction 1690–1730, by decade

NAME ON TITLE PAGE

OTHER TAGLINE OR PSEUDONYM

NOTHING ON TITLE PAGE

NAME INSIDE (NOT ON THE TITLE PAGE)

1690–1699 1700–1709 1710–1719 1720–1729

23a (15%) 16 (17%) 12 (16%) 43 (28%)

28 (18%) 22 (23%) 23 (31%) 35 (23%)

98 (62%) 43 (46%) 36 (49%) 63 (42%)

10 (6%) 2 (2%) 0 5 (3%)

16 (10%) 12 (13%) 2 (3%) 5 (3%)

157 94 73 151

Total

94 (20%)

108 (23%)

240 (50%)

17 (4%)

35 (7%)

475

DECADE

ADDITIONAL WORKS

TOTAL

Includes two instances disputed by the ESTC without explanation. Of this number, four are by Aphra Behn and three are by John Bunyan. The exceptionally high number of anonymous works in this decade may in part be from the tendency for ESTC to list 1690 as the default year for undated chapbooks. Some works appear in more than one category.

a

80 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

Concepts of Authorship in the Early Eighteenth Century We have little information about how fiction writers in the early eighteenth century conceived of their roles as authors. Prefaces and dedications frequently refer to the “author,” but mainly as a simple label to describe the person who wrote the work, without any of the creative mystique that modern readers might associate with the word. Several major theories have developed in modern criticism and scholarship on early concepts of authorship, trying to relate twentieth-century ideas about authors to eighteenth-century uses of the term. Some scholars, following Foucault, separate the author as a person from the author as a creator of works, arguing that authorship was an action or profession rather than an identity. Another view, taken by North and Raven, sees authorship as relatively unimportant both to writers and readers. Other scholars, including Feather and Deazley, have argued that the idea of authorship in this period was defined by the lawsuit of Donaldson v. Becket in 1774, which upheld authors’ copyrights. By examining the ways in which writers of prefaces and dedications describe the author’s role, I shall argue that while there is some support for all three of these views, they do not fully explain the variety of authorial roles. Many comments about authorship found in prefatory material come from translators. The preface to The Adventures of Telemachus, for example, states that “The Original of this Piece is attributed by the Publick Voice to the Arch-Bishop of Cambray,” and goes on to explain that “The Reason he had to involve his Instructions in Fable, will be obvious to all who shall consider that he wrote for Princes, who seldom fail to reject all Precepts that are not guilded with Delight.”12 Here, the translator (who wrote the preface) uses circumstances from the author’s life to explain a literary choice. Introductions often emphasize the fame of foreign authors. The preface to Quevedo’s Fortune in Her Wits, apparently written from the point of view of the publisher, begins, “Don Francisco de Quevedo Villegas, the Author of this small Work, has been a Person so famous in this Age, among all those who understand the Spanish Tongue, that it is much to be admired that England should still be so great a stranger to his Talent.”13 Such prefaces express admiration for the authors and bemoan the difficulties of transferring their “Talent” into English effectively. One trope that reappears in prefaces throughout this period is the idea that the author is a gentleman (or lady) of leisure, for whom writing fic-

Authors and Anonymous Publication · 81

tion is a hobby but not a profession. The preface to the Quevedo work describes him as “a Man of good Quality, and Born to a good Estate” who was “well Versed in the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Italian Languages, and had imbibed the Marrow of the best Authors in them” (sig. A5v-A6r). This is certainly not a Grub Street hack. The illusion that fiction was written by gentlemen and ladies implies that such people are the intended audience— and whether they are or not, even lower-ranked readers would likely appreciate the assumption. A similar statement from an English author is found in the dedication of Love in Distress (1697), from “Corinna” to “Flavia,” which begins, “That Time I stole from my more Airy Diversions, I dedicated to this little Piece, and tho my first design was not to have published it, nor ever desired any Eyes to encounter it, but yours, and my own; yet for that Presumption I lay it at your Feet, and beg your Protection” (sig. A2r). Despite this initial plan for a private readership, the author published the text. Such statements serve both to justify the appropriateness of the work and also to make a profit-based business seem more genteel. The title page of Love in Distress states that it is “by The honourable Lady ***,” which is vague enough to allow the reader to believe that the author really does spend most of her time in “Airy Diversions.” These descriptions make very clear that writers of fiction are not viewed as professional authors. Quevedo and “Lady ***” are not primarily authors, but members of the gentility who happen to have written some fiction. These examples indicate an apparent separation between the author as a person and the work produced. Even for works whose authors are identified on the title pages, the reader only encounters the author through the book, not in person. Rose argues that this increases the distance between authors and readers. In the anonymous publication of Shakespeare’s plays, for example, Rose writes that “there was a further step in the mystification of Shakespeare, the separation of the divine personality of the author of the plays from the human specificity of the actor-playwright-shareholder William Shakespeare.”14 At the same time, however, there was a definite idea in the early eighteenth century that authors of fiction were individual, real people. Collected works of particular authors, especially posthumous editions, often included a “character” or “life” of the author.15 Compilers of editions seem to have considered at least some authors of fiction not only producers of texts, but also interesting people. If there was some attention paid to authors as individuals, how can we explain the high proportion of works that are anonymous? John Mullan has 82 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

suggested a number of reasons for a text to remain anonymous, including mischief on the part of the author, modesty, gender switching, or potential danger to the author. In his view, there are no overarching historical reasons for anonymity, and every case is unique.16 In general terms, his point makes a great deal of sense: Swift’s reasons for anonymity are very different from Austen’s. Some authors in the early eighteenth century might have remained anonymous to imply that they are of a different gender (hence labels such as “by a Lady”), but the fact that both women and men identified themselves on works of fiction indicates that there was not a severe prejudice against either. Two probable reasons for authors of fiction to remain anonymous are to preserve the illusion that a work is real and to avoid repercussions for libel or scandal. The illusion of truth or factuality is enhanced by naming a character as the author of the work. Since, as I argued above, genre labels are largely unhelpful in distinguishing fiction from factual writing, readers would have no way of knowing from the title page that a work was not a legitimate memoir or history. Many works that are potentially scandalous or politically objectionable are, very naturally, anonymous or pseudonymous. Works of pseudo-factual intrigue, such as The Secret History of the Dutchess of Portsmouth (1690) or The History of the Most Renowned Queen Elizabeth and Her Great Favorite, the Earl of Essex (c. 1700), seem more true if the author is anonymous because anonymity implies that the author could be prosecuted for publicizing such unflattering secrets. Politically sensitive works, such as The Secret History of Queen Zarah and the Zarazians (1705) or The Secret History of the October Club (1711), are likely anonymous because their subject matter could offend authorities. The absence of even the publisher’s imprint on these works demonstrates the political sensitivity of their content. As Rose points out, following an edict of 1642 a publisher could be prosecuted for printing dangerous material if no author was identified on the title page (22). Anonymity could protect the author and allow for greater freedom in the content of the work. The vast majority of anonymous works, however, cannot easily be explained by any of the reasons for anonymity put forth by Mullan. I would suggest that many works of fiction were anonymous because readers were not concerned with who wrote them, and authors were not trying to make a reputation for themselves by writing fiction. No one would buy a work because an obscure author wrote it. At this period, there are few writers who are recognizably famous from writing fiction. Viewing authors’ names as Authors and Anonymous Publication · 83

marketing tools makes sense as an extension of North’s observation that in the Renaissance, “the author’s name appeared when his or her name could help sell the book,” but not as a matter of course (65). Attaching a wellknown name like Le Noble, Cervantes, or Sidney, either as author or source, could help sell a new translation or abridgment. This process worked in reverse as well, in that authors’ names were added to fiction that sold well in order to create a future marketing possibility using the name of the author. The “branding” process of authorship is evident in the case of Jane Barker, whose first work of fiction, Love Intrigues (1713), was published with the tagline “by a Young Lady” and the initials “J. B.” after the dedication. Her next work, Exilius (1715), had her name on the title page, as did her subsequent works of fiction. Love Intrigues was included in The Entertaining Novels of Mrs. Jane Barker (1719), making her identity as author very clear. Thus, her name was only added to her fictions after the first sold, and then the original anonymous work was repackaged with her name on it as part of her collected works. If Love Intrigues had been unsuccessful and never reprinted, there is a good chance that her name would never have been associated with it. First editions of works by Bunyan, Congreve, and Haywood (let alone Swift and Defoe) were all published anonymously, but their names were added to later editions after their work sold based on title and content alone.17 Some scholars have suggested that there are legal as well as economic reasons for the use of an author’s name on a work and, in turn, a change in the concept of authorship in the early eighteenth century. Rose argues that “in the Statute of Anne, the author was established as a legally empowered figure in the marketplace well before professional authorship was realized in practice” (4). In reality, as Griffin and Raven demonstrate, the statute had little influence on the use of author names. Feather’s interpretation mediates between these two concepts, explaining that “by 1710, the payment of authors was an established fact, and the normal assumption among all of those involved. . . . The law was for the benefit of the ‘proprietors,’ not the creators, of books.”18 This is a more nuanced way of looking at the statute than is taken by Deazley, who sees it as mainly helping publishers, not authors.19 The difference that the statute made was to allow authors to sell their copyrights or to control the publication of their own work for a specific period of time (twenty-one years) before it reverted to public domain. The phrase used is “Authors or Proprietors,” indicating, as Feather points out, that the people covered under the statute are those who own 84 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

the rights to the text, not the creative originators. The Statute of Anne is about property rights in very economic terms—not abstract intellectual ownership. Authors could be proprietors, but they were not necessarily so. Whatever  the ultimate legal implications of the 1710 law, writers of fiction did not apparently interpret it as a statement about the nature of authorship, and there is no change in the way they appear on title pages and in prefaces.

Professional Authors In a world in which so many works of fiction were anonymous, was there such a thing as a professional author of fiction? The term is frequently applied to fiction writers of the period: Janet Todd, for example, calls Behn “England’s first all-round professional woman writer.”20 Given how much money most authors were paid for fiction, was this even possible? Hammond points out that “the highest prices routinely paid for copyrights at this time were for plays,” but as Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume demonstrate, “an eighteenth-century writer might make quite a lot of money from a particular play, but basically what one could not earn from playwriting was a living.”21 For fiction, scraping together even a minimal income would be very difficult indeed, and even the most prolific fiction writers of this period had other sources of income. Most of the information available on the money earned by authors for writing fiction is anecdotal. Even by the end of the eighteenth century, writers of novels, especially first-time authors and anonymous authors, earned very little. G. E. Bentley Jr. comments that Frances Burney received just £20 for her first novel, Evelina, in 1778.22 Feather reports that the publisher John Nourse, active from midcentury to 1780, paid authors between £1, 1s and £3, 3s per sheet.23 At this rate, a book of 200 octavo pages would earn its author between £13 and £40—but these averages come from books in all subject areas, including works of religion, law, mathematics, and history produced in expensive volumes. A publisher would be foolish to pay much money to a fiction author when there was no guarantee the book would sell. A major problem with such anecdotal evidence is that it skews the available information heavily toward the higher end of the fiction writing market. These examples are from authors whose names we know, selling the rights to well-known publishers to produce mid- to upper-end editions, and we cannot take them to be representative of the price paid to a more Authors and Anonymous Publication · 85

obscure author for a less original work. Twenty pounds seems more likely a maximum than an average, and most fiction writers could expect to earn a great deal less. Hume’s analysis of copyright receipts in the Lintot and Upcott collections supports the idea that a lower figure was more likely than a higher one: out of the 140 books Bernard Lintot purchased at the lower end of the price range, “the author received between £5 and £10, 15s in fifty-seven instances, and less than £5 in thirty-one.”24 Edmund Curll paid just £1, 1s for one fifty-nine-page work of fiction, so evidently his competitors were not offering much more.25 Robert Adams Day calculates that authors in the early eighteenth century likely earned “two to six pounds for a novel of some length” and that “novelists were certainly in a worse state than authors in general.”26 Financially speaking, fiction writers were at the bottom of the ranks of authors. For the sake of this argument, then, I will estimate that a writer of fiction could earn between £1 and £20 depending on his or her previous success, the salability of the work, the publisher producing it, the length of the work, and its printed format and retail price. Hammond remarks that an annual income of £50 “was at least three times that of a labourer but was a typical enough wage for a better-paid journeyman such as a printer,” and that on such a salary “a family could afford to eat well, employ a servant, and live comfortably” (52). To make a moderate living from writing fiction, therefore, a writer would have to produce a minimum of three new works per year, and more likely (given the low prices reported for copyright sales) would have to write five to ten works to earn £50. This is a very high rate of production, especially considering that these figures refer only to published pages, without allowing for drafting or revisions. A writer aiming to complete five works of fiction, each 200 pages in octavo, would have to average at least eighty pages per month—and this to earn no more than a journeyman. Although eighty pages per month does not seem like an impossible amount to produce if one were hard pressed for cash, none of the writers in this period produced anything like this quantity of fiction. The most prolific fiction writer was probably Eliza Haywood, who wrote at least twenty-four works of fiction between 1719 and 1729 (and completed three translations). Some of these, such as Fantomina (1725), are short and were not published separately.27 She produced a total of nearly 3,000 pages, or something less than 300 pages per year—certainly no small number, but only a third of what she would have to have written in order to make £50 per year from 86 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

writing fiction, assuming that the copyright for each work sold for between £5 and £10. Haywood did have other sources of income during the 1720s, as three of her plays were staged and she was involved in the production of at least one of them.28 Earning a living from fiction writing would be very difficult in a hypothetical scenario, and it seems not to have happened in the early eighteenth century. The practice of selling copyrights in this period made earning a living from writing fiction even more difficult. Authors were paid a sum upfront, and in exchange the publishers obtained the exclusive right to print the text for a certain period of time before it became public property.29 This meant that the purchase of a copyright was a gamble on the part of the publisher, as there was no guarantee of recouping even the initial material investment, let alone the fee paid to the author. If a book sold well, however, future profits usually went to the publisher and the author got nothing. Thus, even the most frequently reprinted books earned money for their publishers with each new edition, but not for their authors. Approximately half of the authors of fiction from this period were foreigners or were long dead, and so they would not have benefited at all. At this point the reader might object that with 70 percent of the fiction printed anonymously, the same anonymous writer might have authored enough to make a living wage. This is possible, and there is no way to demonstrate whether it occurred or not. “Hack” writers presumably wrote fiction alongside other types of work. Raven makes the excellent point that “indigent or allegedly indigent authors published anonymously as hack writers, almost certainly encouraged by booksellers not to disclose their identity so that they could be employed again as writers-on-demand or unacknowledged translators.”30 Haywood, Penelope Aubin, and Thomas Brown are all identified on title pages as both authors and translators of fiction in this period, so we can reasonably assume that some anonymous authors similarly did both translation and original composition.31 For an author to have a marketable name, he or she would have to write enough material of a similar type that readers would know what to expect. If an author could not make a living solely from writing fiction, as I have argued here, then what exactly was a “professional” fiction writer? We should not call Haywood or Defoe amateurs, even if they could not have made enough money from their fiction to support themselves. Here, turning to the print culture world can help to define their roles: they are professional in the sense that they are producing works meant to be sold Authors and Anonymous Publication · 87

and are earning money from their fiction writing. Defining “professional” according to quality is problematic, since so many of the fictions by supposedly professional writers were derivative and fairly unoriginal (Keach relies heavily on Bunyan, for example). Even the most popular, prolific, or skillful of the fiction writers would have had to spend a lot of their time, and would earn most of their income, doing something else. A professional fiction writer wrote to sell fiction, and wrote for an audience who would purchase books.

Anthologies, Collected Works, and the Creation of a Canon Despite the high percentage of fiction that is anonymous in this period, the use of authors’ names as selling points is particularly clear in the publication of collected works and anthologies of fiction. Why were some authors repackaged into expensive editions and advertised by name, while others remain anonymous despite having written a popular work? Anthologies and collections often include works that were first published anonymously, but they identify the authors. Collected works are advertised by promoting the name of the author, not necessarily the contents, so they show that at least for some authors, readers might be interested in anything they wrote regardless of the individual titles. Anthologies frequently use the names of the authors on the interior title pages for each work, but they are advertised according to the type of content and are more likely to have the names of works on the main title page than authors. An examination of which works were anthologized or reprinted in collections shows that this is in fact the source for much of the canon of early eighteenth-century fiction established by twentieth-century literary histories. Collected works and anthologies are somewhat different types of publications, but they targeted similar audiences. The collected works of an author includes texts written (or supposedly written) by a single person and may contain poetry, letters, or other genres besides fiction. Anthologies contained works written by several people, but generally only one genre (in the following examples, only fiction). Both collected works and anthologies tended to be long, frequently multi-volume publications of hundreds of pages. They were also expensive, averaging between five and ten shillings, and sometimes as much as fifteen or twenty. Table 11 shows the size and prices of some collected works and anthologies in this period. As this table demonstrates, the price of collected works partly depended on their size: 88 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

the two inexpensive editions (1s each) listed above are relatively short (178 pages in duodecimo and 91 pages in octavo). Sometimes collected editions contain works not available elsewhere, but more often booksellers advertised that some of the works in a collection were also available separately. Advertisements for the three-volume edition of The Works of Mrs. Eliza Haywood list the titles of the works included and state that “Any of the above Pieces may be had single.”32 If one were to buy the six pieces in the collection individually, they would cost 12s 6d unbound.33 For a frequent purchaser of books, then, collected works and anthologies could be a bargain compared to the cost of purchasing the same titles separately, but their high prices would put them out of the reach of many readers. Even the “small paper” edition of Harrington’s Oceana and Other Works would be too expensive for most people. The audience for collected works and anthologies was mostly confined to the upper end of the fiction-purchasing market. The authors for whom a collected edition made the most sense, from the publisher’s point of view, were foreign writers. A number of foreign authors had already become well known in the English market, and a new translation could allow a publisher to issue an edition without having to purchase the copyright to the original. Cervantes was perhaps the most famous of these authors with the longest continuous popularity, both in expensive editions and in chapbook abridgments. A collection of his short fiction (excluding Don Quixote), translated by Walter Pope, was published in 1694 as Select Novels. These works had been available in English as early as 1640 and were reprinted at least three times in this form.34 Dale B. Randall and Jackson C. Boswell have recently compiled an encyclopedic list of Cer vantes’s work and responses to it in England following its introduction in 1611, and they find that “despite having gained a significant foothold in England in the earlier part of the century, it was rather late before Cervantes and his work began to arouse (in Franco Meregalli’s words) ‘el intenso, especifico interés de los ingleses por el Quijote’ [the intense, specific interest of the English for Quixote].”35 Cervantes’s fiction was especially widely read in the last few decades of the seventeenth century, though he was perennially popular. His name was so recognizable that a translation of fiction by Juan Pérez de Montalbán was titled The Diverting Works of the Famous Miguel de Cervantes (1709).36 The title does not make clear whether the attribution to Cervantes is meant to be a joke or a serious attempt to fool readers into buying it because of the author’s name, but either way the publisher clearly expects readers to recognize Cervantes. Authors and Anonymous Publication · 89

IMPRINT

R. Everingham and others, 1694 For R. Wellington, 1696 For R. Wellington and E. Rumball, 1699 John Darby and others, 1700 For S. and J. Sprint and others, 1700 Sold by B. Harris, 1703 For E. Curll, 1719

For T. Warner, 1722

TITLE

Scarron’s Novels

The Histories and Novels

A Collection of Novels: The Secret History of the Earl of Essex and Queen Elizabeth, The Happy Slave, The Viceroy of Catalonia, The Art of Pleasing in Conversation

The Oceana and His Other Works

The Whole Comical Works

A Banquet for Gentlemen and Ladies, Consisting of Nine Comick and Tragick Novels

The Entertaining Novels of Mrs. Jane Barker

Lovers Tales

AUTHOR

Paul Scarron [trans. John Davies]

Aphra Behn

Anon.

James Harrington

Paul Scarron [trans. Brown and Savage]

Anon.

Jane Barker

Anon.

Table 11. Sizes and prices of collected works and anthologies

8vo 91p

2 vols. 8vo 310p

12mo 178p

8vo 359 + 158 + 64p

folio 546p

8vo 325 + 194p

8vo 464p

8vo 404p

SIZE AND LENGTH

1s (title page)

5s (title page)

1s7

6s 6

20s small paper,4 30s large5

10s 3

5s 2

5s1

PRICE

H. Woodfall for J. Stevens, 1725 For Dan Browne and S. Chapman, 1725

The Works of Mrs. Davys

Secret Histories, Novels and Poems

Mary Davys

Eliza Haywood

4 vols. 12mo 291 + 282 + 293 + 286p

2 vols. 8vo 284 + 305p

3 vols. 8vo 332 + 404 + 356 + 324p

10s10

6s 9

15s bound8

1. Daily Courant, issue 1403 (Oct. 12, 1706), 2. 2. The 1706 edition by Richard Wellington (Daily Courant, issue 1403 [Oct. 12, 1706], 2) advertised thus; the volume of her plays is advertised at 12s. 3. Flying Post, or, The Post-Master, issue 866 (Nov. 23–26, 1700), 2. 4. Post Man and the Historical Account, issue 730 (March 26–28, 1700), 2. 5. Flying Post, or, The Post-Master, issue 915 (March 18–20, 1701), 2. 6. Arber, Term Catalogues, 3.199. 7. London Post with Intelligence Foreign and Domestick, issue 359 (Sept. 12–15, 1701), 2. 8. Daily Journal, issue 836 (Sept. 26, 1723), 2. A fourth volume is published later, but no price is advertised for the four-volume version. 9. Daily Post, issue 2226 (Nov. 11, 1726), 2. The advertisement might refer to a second edition. 10. Daily Courant, issue 7260 ( Jan. 22, 1725), 2.

For Dan Browne and Sam Chapman, 1724

The Works of Mrs. Eliza Haywood

Eliza Haywood

Several of the foreign authors who appeared in collected editions were French writers from the later seventeenth century. Although they did not have Cervantes’s long-standing appeal, Scarron, Rabelais, and Aulnoy had all proven that their works would sell in English translation. Rabelais’s collected works were first published in 1664, and Scarron’s works had been translated as early as 1665 and remained in print in English as both collected editions and single titles throughout the eighteenth century.37 Aulnoy had not appeared before in a collected edition, but her single works sold well enough for one of them to have as many as six editions in fifteen years.38 The editors of these collected volumes are clearly conscious of the fact that the authors are a draw as well as the texts, and include personal information about them that coincides with the tone of the writing. The Works of F. Rabelais, M.D. (1694) advertises on the title page that it has “a large Account of the Life and Works of the Author,” which describes Rabelais’s origins as the son of a successful apothecary. On the conception of his most famous work, the writer of the account explains, “’Tis vulgarly said, that Rabelais having Published some Physical Tract, which did not sell, upon the disappointed Book-seller’s Complaint to him, told him, that since the World did not know how to value a good Book, they would undoubtedly like a bad one, and that accordingly he would write something that would make him large amends; upon which he Composed his Gargantua and Pantagruel, by which the Book-seller got an Estate,” though the writer is quick to dispute the factuality of the story (vii). For an author most famous for a comical work, such an anecdote enhances his reputation for being personally witty. Similarly, both editions of Scarron’s works published in this period include a physical description supposedly written by Scarron that portrays him as deformed, unattractive, and humorous, though the writer of one preface praises him as “the smartest, and most pleasant Writer of this last Age.”39 Such descriptions use the person of the author to add to the reputation of his works. Perhaps the most elaborate authorial presentation among the foreign fiction writers is that of Marie Catherine Jumelle de Berneville D’Aulnoy, known as the Countess D’Anois. The Diverting Works of the Countess D’Anois (1707) includes a supposed autobiography, “The Memoirs of Madam, the Countess of D’Anois, Before her Retirement.” This claims that she began her first love affair as a girl because of “the aiery Vanity of Romances” (7). The memoir describes a disastrous first marriage, her many lovers and suitors, and a secret second marriage with a young nobleman later killed in 92 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

battle. There is nothing about her writing or her life as an author. Melvin D. Palmer points out that “the Memoirs is actually a sentimental romance, the fictional creation of Mme de Murat,” and argues that “on the basis of this romance . . . a good part of Mme d’Aulnoy’s public in England must have thought her highly experienced in affairs of the heart, but sincere, honest, sensitive, and unfairly persecuted.”40 The “Memoirs” gains the author sympathy for her plight as well as gives credibility to her works of love and court scandal. The English writer whose collected edition is the most calculated to commercialize her reputation is Aphra Behn. Both the 1696 and the 1698 editions of Histories and Novels of the Late Ingenious Mrs. Behn include a short “Memoirs on the Life” of Behn.41 The “Memoirs” describes her as a gentlewoman who from an early age “wou’d Write the prettiest, softengaging Verses in the World” (sig. A8r). It also details her trip to Surinam and her encounter with Oroonoko and Imoinda (apparently derived from her fictional Oroonoko), and explains that when she returned to England she “gave King Charles the Second, so pleasant and rational an Account of his Affairs there, and particularly of the Misfortunes of Oroonoko, that he desir’d her to deliver them publickly to the World” (sig. b1v). Todd is unclear as to the trustworthiness of the “Memoirs,” admitting that it seems to be derived from Behn’s fiction but sometimes using it for information about her life.42 There are several anecdotes that sound like the sort of love story Behn wrote, but then the writer of the “Memoirs” explains that after some time abroad, “The Rest of her Life was entirely dedicated to Pleasure and Poetry; the success in which, gain’d her the Acquaintance and Friendship of the most sensible Men of the Age” (sig. b6v). As Jane Spencer has pointed out, the “‘Memoirs’ . . . were responsible for a decisive shift in the way she was received: from Behn the witty author to Behn the amorous adventuress.”43 The intertwining of her biography with the fictional narrator of Oroonoko further served to add to the veracity of her tales as being told by a supposed eyewitness. The version of Behn presented in the “Memoirs” is an amalgam of her typical fictional characters: exotic, romantic, and privileged. Most strikingly, there is no mention in the “Memoirs” of her work as a playwright. This is certainly not because her plays were unimportant or forgotten; even as late as the 1760s, David Erskine Baker lists sixteen plays by Behn and comments that “In all, even the most indifferent of her Pieces, there are strong Marks of Genius and Understanding.”44 Spencer argues that the erasure of Behn’s dramatic reputation occurred because “it was Behn Authors and Anonymous Publication · 93

the novelist who was most thoroughly and, it appeared, intimately revealed to her readers,” which “worked well as a way of marketing Behn’s fiction.”45 Whoever wrote the “Memoirs” for Briscoe’s posthumous collection of fiction was trying to portray her as a gentlewoman who wrote her first novel at the bidding of a king, not as a playwright trying to make a living. The 1698 edition gives further insight into the publisher’s presentation of Behn as an author of fiction. Added to this edition are three works not in the 1696 edition: Memoirs of the Court of the King of Bantam, The Nun, and The Adventure of the Black Lady. An “Advertisement to the Reader” states that “The Stile of the Court of the King of Bantam, being so very different from Mrs. Behn’s usual way of Writing, it may perhaps call its being genuine in Question; to obviate which Objection, I must inform the Reader, That it was a Trial of Skill, upon a Wager, to shew that she was able to write in the Style of the Celebrated Scarron.”46 This statement conveys two important facts about the portrayal of Behn’s authorship in this edition: that Behn had a distinct style recognizable to her readers at this time, and that her readers would have cared whether a work was really by her or not (“genuine”). This indicates greater concern on the part of readers about the authorship of the fiction than the large body of anonymous works would lead one to believe. Besides Behn, at least three other English fiction authors appear in collected editions following the sale of their works singly. The collected works of Barker, Haywood, and Davys all make good economic sense when considered alongside their previous sales. Barker had already published Love Intrigues in 1713 and Exilius in 1715, so the inclusion of both in her collected works in 1719 is logical.47 Haywood’s works appeared in two different collected editions, The Works of Mrs. Eliza Haywood (1724) and Secret Histories, Novels, and Poems (1725). These have slightly different contents, but both begin with Love in Excess, her most successful work. The Works of Mrs. Davys (1725) similarly included previously published works such as The Northern Heiress (1716) and The Reform’d Coquet (1724). The edition does not have a biography of Davys, but she apparently wrote the preface and describes the origins of several works. The Lady’s Tale, for example, she claims “was writ in the Year 1700, and was the Effect of my first Flight to the Muses, it was sent about the World as naked as it came into it, having not so much as one Page of Preface to keep it in Countenance What Success it met with, I never knew; for as some unnatural Parents sell their Offspring to Beggars, in order to see them no more, I took three Guineas for the Brat of my Brain” (v).48 This offhand comment is telling in the way Davys pre94 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

sents her authorship as a matter of little concern. She is not trying to be a famous literary innovator or an important writer, and her writing means little enough that she did not give it another thought after selling the story. The sum of £3, 3s seems a high price for a short amorous tale by an unknown woman author. Given the amount of money, this comment may indicate Davys’s businesslike attitude toward her works as a means of earning money, rather than false modesty about her literary abilities. For several English authors, the evidence of their previous publications does not help explain why a collected works edition was issued. Defoe’s collected works appeared in 1703 and 1705 and only include poems and nonfictional prose writing.49 Much of it is relevant to very specific issues and events, and the publication of such ephemeral items in a collected edition seems a gamble on the part of the publishers. James Harrington is an even more puzzling case. His Commonwealth of Oceana was first published in 1656 and reprinted in 1658. Following this, no complete edition appeared until the very expensive folio version of his works in 1700. There is no good reason for the publishers of this edition to think it would sell at the exorbitant price of 20s. John Darby, the printer of this later edition, was known as a printer of radical political works, so his choice of Harrington makes some sense.50 Whatever reasons Darby had for gambling on the expensive edition, he made a good choice, and Harrington gained popularity throughout the eighteenth century with editions of the collected works appearing in 1737, 1747, 1758 (in Dublin), and 1771. One of the most striking instances of the holders of a copyright failing to capitalize on an author’s reputation by issuing collected works is the case of John Bunyan. One thick folio volume was issue by William Marshall in 1692, grandly titled The Works of that Eminent Servant of Christ, Mr. John Bunyan, Late Minister of the Gospel, and Pastor of the Congregation at Bedford. The whole presents Bunyan as a learned theologian rather than a writer of popular allegories: the address “To the Serious, Judicious, and Impartial Reader” says rather bitterly that “It’s evident, that many in his Life-time did despise him, and all done by him, for the meanness of his Education,” but that the “Spirit may, and evidently doth instruct the Unlearned . . . and truly qualifie, and fit them both for Preaching, and Writing” (sig. A1r). The implication here is that Bunyan was divinely inspired to write and preach, and so did not need much formal education. The works printed in this first volume are mainly theological essays: of his imaginative writing, only The Holy City appears. This might be because this volume is emphasizing works Authors and Anonymous Publication · 95

“never before Printed,” or it might be part of a larger project on the part of the editor to shift Bunyan’s reputation toward his more serious writing. According to the editor, the printing of Bunyan’s works was difficult to finance, despite his continuous popularity, and a second volume was planned but apparently not printed. A note to the “Christian Reader” after the text provides the following explanation: Concerning this Folio, &c. I have struggled to bring about this great good Work, and it had succeeded in Mr. Bunyans life time, even all his Labors in Folio; but then an interested Book-seller opposed it. And not withstanding the many discouragements I have met with in my struggles in this so great a Work, we have (and I may believe by the blessing of the Lord) gotten about 400 Subscriptions, whereof about thirty are Ministers, which also shews the great Esteem our Authors Labours are in among Christian people. . . . His Effigies was cut in Copper from an Original paint and done to the life (by his very good Friend a Limner) and those that desire it single to put in a Frame, may have it at this Bookseller’s, Mr. Marshal, and also the Catalogue-Table. (sig. Uuuuu1r)

This description demonstrates that the editor of the text was very concerned with enhancing Bunyan’s reputation by preserving him in a large, expensive format. The emphasis on the size of the printed edition (“in Folio”) and on the religious qualifications of the “Ministers” among the subscribers shows how the editor is attempting to raise Bunyan’s status as a theologian. Perhaps most interesting is the comment about the “Effigies” being available “single to put in a Frame.” The idea that readers would want a picture of Bunyan on the wall indicates that he was starting to achieve (or the editor here hoped he would achieve) the mystical status of authors like Milton and Dryden. Bunyan might be particularly appropriate for this because of the religious content of his writing, but this is certainly a view of authorship very unusual for fiction writers. While collected works editions naturally emphasized the author of the texts, anthologies frequently obscured the author and instead promoted the content of the works chosen. The practice of printing full-length works of fiction from different authors together in the same volume has largely gone unremarked: Leah Price, in her account of eighteenth-century fiction anthologies, focuses exclusively on the period after 1740 and the use of fiction excerpts in anthologies alongside other genres.51 Yet there are at least six different anthologies of fiction in the period 1690–1730—one of which, 96 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

A Select Collection of Novels (1720), was successful enough to go into four editions in the eighteenth century.52 The contents of this anthology may help to explain its relative success. Edited by Samuel Croxall, A Select Collection of Novels includes twenty-six works of fiction by French and Spanish authors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Most of the works had appeared before in English and sold singly, so the booksellers in this jointly published production could have been reasonably sure of some sales. The authors include the most famous of the fiction writers in the seventeenth century, such as Cervantes, Scarron, Le Sage, La Fayette, Brémond, and La Roche- Guilhem. However, the authors’ names are not on the main title page, and the publishers are apparently not trying to cash in on their fame, though some are mentioned on interior title pages for individual works. Advertisements for the collection give only the titles of each work, without their authors. The first edition sold for 15s, which would be a lot for a single work but is about average if divided among the six volumes (2s, 6d apiece).53 The title page claims that the contents are “all New Translated from the Originals, By several Eminent Hands.” As new translations, they could be printed as though they were entirely new texts without the booksellers having to purchase their copyrights. This allows the booksellers to lower the price enough that, volume by volume, it compares with the cost of buying the works separately. The fact that the titles are highlighted rather than the authors indicates that the booksellers thought they would attract more readers with the content of the anthology than its authors. This is a very different strategy from that used to sell collected editions, which tended to emphasize the artistry and skill of a particular author with little regard for the content produced. Other fiction anthologies include works from both foreign and English writers. Like A Select Collection of Novels, they emphasize the titles of the individual works over the authors’ names. They are mostly not as consistent in the types of works included or as full of famous texts. Instead, they seem to be simply a different format for a bookseller to market works already in print. A Collection of Novels (1699), for example, includes The Secret History of the Earl of Essex and Queen Elizabeth, The Happy Slave, The Double Cuckold, and The Art of Pleasing in Conversation. Only the last has an author on the title page, and that attribution (“Cardinal Richelieu”) is false. The Secret History of the Earl of Essex and Queen Elizabeth had been in print anonymously since 1680 and was included in Modern Novels.54 The Happy Slave first appeared in English in 1677 and was volume 9 of Modern Novels, while Authors and Anonymous Publication · 97

The Double Cuckold was first translated in 1678.55 The ESTC attributes both to Gabriel de Brémond. The Art of Pleasing in Conversation, in English since 1691, is attributed to Pierre Ortigue de Vaumorière. Although all these had been previously published, they have little in common: one is a historical, scandalous love story, set in Elizabethan England but likely originally written in French; two are moralistic romances written by Brémond; and one is a French work partly in dialogue that has little plot and is mainly instructional. Bentley was involved in the original publication of all of them, so he is likely the reason for the selection of these particular works. The printing of an author’s collected works seems contrary to the view of authorship we might assume on the basis of the high number of anonymous texts. Sometimes, booksellers capitalized on particular authors as marketing tools to draw customers to buy other works they wrote, but they also relied on titles to entice potential buyers. There is no consistent understanding of the importance of an author to his or her works. If readers considered authors totally unimportant, no one would buy a collected works edition; if they elevated the author as the creative producer of a text, there would be more incentive for a publisher to include information about the authors. Both concepts are at work simultaneously in the fiction of this period. Collected works, more so than anthologies, have shaped the idea of the fiction canon both for later eighteenth-century readers and for twentiethcentury scholars. The selection of works included in anthologies, as seen here, seems to have more to do with marketing and finances than with artistic decisions. The choice of authors for collected editions usually depended on salability and previous popularity, and many of those fictions have worked their way into literary histories as significant texts in the history of fiction in England. Clara Reeve, in The Progress of Romance, highlights Cervantes as the beginning of Spanish fiction, Scarron as the beginning of French fiction, and Behn as a significant early English writer.56 The publication of their works in collected author editions from very early on assures them of a place in the canon of fiction writers. With some exceptions (most notably Defoe), the authors who appeared in collected works editions are those who still dominate our view of fiction in the period. We are left then with a few conclusions from this survey of concepts of authorship in the early eighteenth century. First, since a majority of works of fiction were anonymous, readers were not overly concerned with identifying authors or with reading a work of fiction in conjunction with its author’s biography. Second, authors’ names were used mainly when doing so 98 · Fiction in the Print Culture World

would help to sell more books by the author, or to capitalize on the author’s prior fame and reputation. Throughout this period, titles are used far more than authors to draw potential readers, even when the author’s name was already known from other publications. Third, there is little consistency as to how authors are described in prefaces or presented on title pages, or the social and intellectual position of the author as a working professional, a creative inventor of texts, or a proprietor over intellectual property. In the face of such confusion and contradiction, how can we understand fiction authorship as early eighteenth-century readers and writers did? One solution is to take each case individually: to conceive of Aulnoy and Behn as enshrined in their collected editions, and to read their works in the context of the accompanying “Memoirs” of their lives (accurate or not), and to read anonymous works alongside other texts with similar titles and content. Another approach is to view authorship in terms of copyright and ownership, so that the older and foreign material is in effect public, and the author is more a function of the text than a creator. I have argued here for viewing authorship as a marketing tool, used to attract readers to texts based on the creation of a “brand” name of the author, but otherwise little regarded. The point is that we need to be more conscious of the model of authorship we are using when we discuss authors, particularly of fiction, in this period. Anonymous publication forces readers to choose and judge texts based solely on the titles and content, so to view these works in a more historically grounded way, scholars should do the same. By choosing texts for consideration based on the authors who wrote them, scholars are applying a twentieth-century view of the importance of authorship backward onto eighteenth-century readers. A person shopping in a bookstall in 1692 would have had no more reason to choose Incognita than The Rival Mother or Zingis, based on the authors’ names (as all three are anonymous). In fact, a reader looking for new books by famous authors in 1692 would have had to choose Memoirs of the Court of France, by “Madam L. M. D., Author of the Voyage into Spain.” The fact that modern scholars have labeled some books as the work of authors worth studying and other books as anonymous trash has greatly changed our perception of what books would have been attractive or important to their original readers. Without taking seriously the vast amount of anonymous literature, our understanding of early fiction is warped in favor of an authorial bias that eighteenth-century fiction readers seem not to have had.

Authors and Anonymous Publication · 99

Part Two

s F I C T I O N I N E N G L A N D, 16 9 0 – 17 3 0

4 Reprints of Earlier English Fiction

s An astonishingly large proportion—close to a quarter—of the approximately 475 different works of fiction printed in England in the period 1690–1730 were reprints of pre-1690 texts. These are almost never mentioned in histories of the novel, yet early eighteenth-century readers would have encountered them alongside newly written works. What were the advantages to reprinting older works, and why were certain texts chosen instead of others? While about half of these reprints (something like sixty items) were from the seventeenth century, more than thirty titles are from Tudor or even medieval sources. One reason for the high number of reprinted texts may be the commercial advantages to the publisher: an older work was not under copyright, and its past success was some assurance that it would sell again. The choice of works reprinted, however, may surprise a modern reader: medieval romances like Sir Bevis of Hampton and Guy of Warwick were turned into prose and reprinted many times, but the Canterbury Tales remained in verse and was read as poetry rather than fiction. In this chapter I will demonstrate that reprinting at this time formed the beginning of an English literary canon that was specifically fiction. By means of a chronological survey of the sources for works reprinted in the early eighteenth century, I aim to approximate the view of the history of English fiction that readers in this period might have had based on the works available to them.

103

The Practice of Reprinting Reprints have been entirely omitted from literary histories of fiction, which focus on newly written works. Fiction readers, however, would have encountered reprinted material alongside new works, so a consideration of earlier fiction still reprinted in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries is essential for understanding how new fiction would have been read. While I shall here examine earlier English works separately from the newly written fictions, many do not indicate that they were reprinted from an earlier text. Even those that do state they are a “new edition” almost never say when the work was originally written—so fiction deriving from a medieval tale might appear to be just as recent as a text first published in the 1680s. Readers of fiction, therefore, would not have been able to distinguish as easily as modern scholars between works from different time periods, and so would not have had the same sense of a chronological, sequential past to English fiction. The lack of consistent labeling makes the reprint business difficult to quantify. Michael F. Suarez calculates that approximately 10 percent of the titles listed in any given year of the ESTC were reprints of older material, but because the ESTC only lists extant copies, “the 10 per cent figure considerably underestimates the number of reprinted editions in the eighteenth century.”1 The interest in perpetual copyright indicates the lucrative nature of the reprint market: if reprints were not worth much, then publishers would not have worried about holding onto their copyrights after the first edition came out.2 Some books remained popular long after their first publication, and a few were reprinted regularly for hundreds of years. Suarez notes that as late as 1750–69, Defoe and Haywood were two of the top five authors of fiction, based on the number of editions.3 Evidently, some of the fiction of the 1720s did not immediately disappear from public view. In the period 1690–1730, some sixty-eight different works printed at least once had been previously published.4 An additional 206 titles first published in English in this period were reprinted at least once. More than half the fiction in print in this period, therefore, was successful enough to warrant at least one subsequent edition—far more than the 10 percent figure that Suarez cites for the total reprint output. A larger proportion of fiction, therefore, was reprinted than some other types of writing. Many of these only had one further edition, but a few were extremely successful. Some thirty-five works are printed more than ten times from 1690 on, and 104 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

half of these were reprinted dozens of times, continuing to the end of the eighteenth century or even beyond. This is a staggering number of reprinted editions considering the relatively small percentage of the population purchasing and reading fiction. Some of these texts, like The Pilgrim’s Progress, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels, and A Tale of a Tub remained part of the English fiction canon, but others, like Quevedo’s Visions, The Hermit, or Friendship in Death, are rarely read or studied. The most frequently reprinted works have little in common in terms of their content or themes. Given the unpredictability of what works of fiction might succeed, the desire of publishers to control the reprinting of books under their copyrights makes sense. Reprinting older fiction is even more difficult to quantify than the printing of new works. In many cases, all the copies of a particular issue or edition are lost, so the only evidence that an edition was printed might be the unreliable title-page labels on later versions that they are the “sixth edition.” Such counts, even if they are accurate, do not reflect unauthorized versions—a practice that became increasingly common in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries as the Stationers’ Company lost its monopoly. In cases where editions are not numbered accurately on the title pages, different editions, different issues of the same edition, and different printings of the same issue can be hard to distinguish, resulting in ghosts of nonexistent editions listed in standard bibliographies. Given all these difficulties, statistics about reprinted editions need to be taken as suggestive but not definitive. The two most important points regarding the way that reprinted works of fiction would have been understood by their contemporary readers are that title pages often do not say that a work is a reprint of an older text, and even when they do there is no indication of when it was originally written. For more recent works of fiction, this would not have mattered much: a work first printed in the 1680s might be very similar to the type of fiction being written in the 1690s. Older texts, however, would have been experienced by their readers as new works: editions of Guy of Warwick, Bevis of Hampton, and The History of King Arthur from the 1690s carry no indication that they are not new, original texts. Of course, these stories might already be so well known that some readers would recognize them as having earlier origins. This seems to have been the case with The Noble Birth and Gallant Atchievements of That Remarkable Outlaw Robin Hood (c. 1690), which is “Newly Collected into one Volume by an Ingenious Antiquary” Reprints of Earlier English Fiction · 105

and The History of Reynard the Fox, and Reynardine his Son (c. 1700), which states that it has been “done into English, Dutch, French, Italian, &c.” The assumption that an “Antiquary” would be an appropriate person to study Robin Hood means that it was understood to be an old text. The comment about translations of Reynard implies that it has been around for a while— but there is no signal that this is not the first English version. Even when a title page has more specific information about a work being old (as with the “sixteenth edition” of Faustus) it does not say exactly how old it is. Readers might have had a general idea that English fiction had a past, but would not have had a clear sense of when each work originated.

Reprints and Adaptations of Fiction from Medieval Sources The absence of almost any discussion of fiction deriving from medieval romances in histories of the novel is a puzzling omission. What romances lasted, and how were they altered to fit the conventions of fiction? McKeon discusses the original composition of medieval romances as parallel to the composition of fiction in later periods, but does not comment on the versions of these texts that survived to the eighteenth century.5 Salzman’s critical history starts earlier than most, in 1558, and while he refers to Bunyan’s knowledge of Sir Bevis, he does not comment on what version Bunyan would have read nor why Bunyan read Sir Bevis and not Gawain (which was unknown in the seventeenth century).6 One reason Salzman gives for not discussing these texts is that “before the sixteenth century, English narrative took the form of verse, rather than prose” and so falls outside the scope of his study (1). This makes sense for Salzman’s project, but does not account for the continual rewriting and reprinting of some medieval texts and not others. More importantly, the influence of certain medieval fictions depended on their adaptation into modernized prose. This made them more accessible to English readers in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and therefore more likely to influence writers of new fictions such as Bunyan. Out of all the medieval romances and tales, only eight had been adapted into modernized prose by the late seventeenth century: Robin Hood, Reynard the Fox, Guy of Warwick, Bevis of Hampton, Gesta Romanorum, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, The History of King Arthur, and Valentine and Orson. All eight have origins prior to print, and were first printed by William Caxton or Wynkyn de Worde. Except for Reynard, they were all 106 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

originally in verse, and only adapted into prose in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when they are also abridged and retold in modernized English. The original versions were mostly not reprinted until they were rediscovered by nineteenth-century philologists. The widespread printing of the abridgments meant that these texts were relatively well known and imitated by the seventeenth century. The modernization of the language of these medieval texts is important in creating a prose version that resembles newly written fictional works of the late seventeenth century. The opening lines of Bevis of Hampton provide a good example of how the text was adapted over time for new readers and linguistic conventions. De Worde’s version, printed circa 1500, begins Lordynges lysten & holde you styll Of doughty men tell I wyll That hath ben in many a stoure And helde up englond his honour That before this tyme hathe been By a knyght it is that I mene Syr Beuys of hampton the knyght hyght. That neuer was shewed a cowarde in fyght.7

The opening echoes poems from an oral tradition—telling the audience to “lysten,” not to “read”—and clearly indicates the story is set in a past England that no longer exists. Nostalgia and nationalism are fundamental to the poem from the very beginning: Bevis’s greatest achievement, according to the speaker, is that he “helde up englond his honour.” The circa 1560 edition, printed by William Coplande, is very similar but with some modernization of the spelling: “meane” instead of “mene,” in line 6, for example, or “time hath” instead of “tyme hathe” in line 5.8 The 1585 edition makes several alterations to the text in addition to further changing the spelling. Most important, the lines are arranged so that two lines become one (e.g., the first line is “Lysten Lordings and hold you still, of douhty men tell you I will”) with only a comma separating the two halves of the new line where the old line break was.9 This makes the text appear as a larger block on the page, like prose, and eliminates the end-rhymes that make the verse form so apparent and stilted. The 1585 version, with its double-line layout, remained in print through the mid-seventeenth century. Later prose versions, both a full-length tale from 1689 and a chapbook abridgment of 1691, also begin by setting the scene in the past but are more Reprints of Earlier English Fiction · 107

specific than the original poem. The chapbook states, “In the Reign of Edgar, King of England, there was a most Renowned Knight, whose Name was Sir Guy” (father to Bevis).10 Gone is the call to the listeners, reminiscent of oral tale-telling; editors of the later versions of Bevis clearly show that the story occurred in the distant past and is now the stuff of legends. This is highlighted by the addition of the words “Famous and Renowned” to the title of the 1689 version, indicating that readers would likely have already heard the tale from other sources. The modernization of the language blurs the distinction between when the work was written and when it takes place. A reader might know from the opening lines that this text refers to incidents that occurred long ago, but for all one can tell from the title page, it might be newly written. One of the most widely reprinted and imitated works of medieval literature was Robin Hood, which has a subversive, revolutionary hero famous for stealing from the wealthy to give to the poor. This might seem to be especially appealing to a late seventeenth-century audience, who had already seen a revolution that challenged the monarchy at the very top of the social structure. However, the late seventeenth-century prose versions of Robin Hood tended to make the hero from the gentry rather than the lower class: the first line of the circa 1700 prose retelling states that “Robin Hood was descended of the Noble Family of the Earl of Huntington.” Even the title emphasizes “The Noble Parentage, and the Gallant Atchievements,” putting his birth before his exploits. Contemporary ballad versions of Robin Hood do not give him such distinctive origins. One ballad, for example, explains that “The Father of Robin a Forester was,” and “His Mother was Neece to the Coventry Knight” who “slew the blew bore that hangs up at the gate.”11 While his forester father was still related to the Earl of Huntington, the ballad versions are clearly emphasizing a more immediately plebian upbringing rather than his noble ancestry. The elevation of Robin Hood is further demonstrated in a new chapter added to the prose version. Robin encounters a nobleman who is rude to him, so he fences with him only to find that the gentleman turns out to be his nephew Gamwel, allowing Robin Hood to regain entry into the nobility. Gamwel is mentioned in the ballad (as Robin’s uncle, rather than his nephew) but is not reunited with Robin. The ennobling of Robin Hood dates to Anthony Munday’s play The Death of Robert, Earl of Huntington, Otherwise Called Robin Hood of Merrie Sherwodde (1601). Munday’s version is also the source for the bulk of

108 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

the Maid Marian part of the legend (as Robin’s love interest). Critics have mostly discounted the deviations from the traditional story that persist in the seventeenth-century ballads and prose. A. J. Pollard sees the tale as having two entirely separate versions, commenting that “the radical Robin Hood refused to lie down; a new popular ballad literature, in single-sheet broadside form, emerged, which in the seventeenth century sustained the old traditions.”12 This implies that the ballads repeated the old versions, even as Munday’s noble Robin Hood was gaining popularity—but as the prose version makes clear, the two types of Robin Hood legends were not incompatible. Stephen Knight takes a much gloomier view of the revisions when he complains that “the gentrified tradition not only gave up the robustly radical concept of Robin Hood the social bandit, a hard-handed righter of wrongs, seizer of money, and ready killer of oppressors: it also gave up the highly entertaining tricksterish and carnivalesque stories” of the earlier medieval versions.13 In fact, the prose retelling integrates the anecdotal, “tricksterish” stories into Munday’s noble Robin Hood. The combination of the gentrified and trickster legends can be seen by the fact that Robin is comic rather than heroic in much of the prose version. Some stories included in the prose version were printed separately as individual ballads, including Robin Hood and the Shepherd, His Famous Actions and Worthy Exploits before Q. Katherine, and even Robin Hood and the Bishop, in which he dresses as an old woman to avoid arrest. In one adventure where he goes to sea, the narrator explains that “he would throw in nothing but his bare Line, without any Hook or Bait at all; which (amongst other things) made him so rediculous, that a thousand times he wished himself again, either in Sherwood Forest, or Plumpton Park.”14 The image of Robin being ignorant of fishing and wishing he were back at home serves only for humor, and makes him seem less like a noble hero. The narrative structure of the prose is very loose and reflects its assembly from different versions of the story from different periods. There is no logical sequence to the stories, though there are brief comments at the beginning of several relating to the previous adventure: after an anecdote in which Robin kills several foresters who are attacking him, the next story begins, “After this so sad an Execution of so many of the Foresters, there was not any one so hardy as to question bold Robin” (sig. A4r). The stories do not depend on each other, but there is a certain arc to the plot of the whole. In the final anecdote, Robin retires by “betaking himself to a civil course

Reprints of Earlier English Fiction · 109

of Life” and staying friends with rich and poor both (sig. C4v). This does not occur in the ballad versions, but it gives a closure to the whole narrative absent from the individual stories. Like Robin Hood, Reynard seems to suit a late seventeenth-century audience because of its subversive message: Reynard, regardless of his social status, outwits almost everyone he encounters. Reynard has a much more cohesive (if anecdotal) plot than Robin Hood, so later additions were in the form of two sequels rather than emendations to the original story. Reynard was always in prose, even in its earliest printed version from 1481, and was never adapted into a ballad. The basic plot is simple: Various animals complain to the Lion about Reynard and describe how he has tricked them. He is condemned to death, but when he confesses his sins, the Lion forgives and pardons him. The chapbook tells just this basic story, while the longer prose edition adds details about the setting and the nature of Reynard’s tricks, providing dialogue and description absent from earlier versions.15 The longer version features discursive morals after each chapter, which break up the otherwise continuous narrative into a series of separate tales. The moral after the first chapter, for example, explains that “By this we see however wicked Men flatter ’emselves with escaping unpunish’d . . . yet it the more proves their Guilt,” and details what each character supposedly signifies in real life (20). Such specific morals, along with statements like “Here, as in a Mirror, the politick Statesman may see his Counterfeits” and thereby might improve, link the Reynard story with Aesop and the fable tradition (sig. A2r). The name “Reynard” was also commonly used for foxes in translations of Aesop’s tales.16 The 1694 edition of Reynard claims to be “Newly Corrected and Purged, from all grossness both in Phrase and Matter”— referring both to the revisions that brought the medieval story into modern English, and to the insertion of morals for each stage of the tale.17 Other than the moralizing, the sequels and revisions to Reynard do not drastically change the original story. Reynard goes on a pilgrimage in his first sequel, but he meets the son of his old enemy the Wolf and has an adventure very similar to the first part of the story. The end of this sequel leaves Reynard “gathering great Wealth, and highly advancing his Children,” with no hint of a third part (116). The history of Reynardine, his son, continues likewise with some of the same characters (the Lion, the Brock, the Wolf, etc.). Kenneth Varty suggests that one economic benefit of keeping the sequels similar to the original was the reuse of woodcuts.18 Authors of the sequels were likely reluctant to deviate too much from the well-known 110 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

story found in the first part. This is not to say that there are no substantial differences: Reynardine is less fortunate than his father, and ends up being drawn and quartered for his crimes (168). Mish attributes the success of Reynard in the seventeenth century to the addition of violent action and moralizing, the latter of which he calls “a feature which is common to most popular pieces of Stuart fiction.”19 Such a wide generalization can hardly be true, and the example of Robin Hood shows that morals were not required for medieval texts to be adapted to seventeenth-century tastes. This comparison of Robin Hood and Reynard is meant to show how two stories with different medieval origins both ended up as prose fiction in the late seventeenth century, with no indication of their histories. Robin Hood, compiled from separate ballads, has a choppy, anecdotal plotline that only vaguely follows the life of the main character. Reynard, originating from a single, cohesive story, became a collection of anecdotes (even “picaresque,” according to Donald B. Sands) through the addition of morals, further anecdotes, and two sequels that mainly repeat the main events of the original narrative.20 Reynard had been in print almost continuously since Caxton’s first edition, and as N. F. Blake points out, as early as the fifteenth century “the popularity of the Canterbury Tales and the occasional use of the name Reynard both by Chaucer and other authors suggest that English people knew sufficient about the fox and his escapades to make an edition of Reynard the Fox financially viable.”21 Given the production of sequels in the late seventeenth century, Reynard was apparently still “financially viable” even in its revised forms. The rambling structure of Reynard is found also in The Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mandeville, Knight (first printed 1496), which describes Mandeville’s wanderings on the way to Jerusalem. Voyages and Travels was reprinted at least six times in the eighteenth century. C. W. R. D. Moseley is one of the few scholars to mention Mandeville in this period, but he dismisses the seventeenth-century versions as “the usual frequent reprints of the Defective text (often severely cut), the ballad, the chapbook,” with no further analysis.22 There is no indication on the title page or in the preface that Mandeville’s tale is not true, though critics seem to have assumed that readers would recognize it as fiction.23 Mandeville does state that he “passed the Sea in the year One thousand three hundred thirty two,” so a reader of the preface would have known that it was set if not written several hundred years before (sig. A2v). Mandeville’s ostensible purpose is to help travelers to Jerusalem by describing “the right way that they shall hold Reprints of Earlier English Fiction · 111

thither: for I have ridden it, and passed it with good observation”—not to entertain readers of fiction. The late seventeenth-century version is a highly edited and abridged edition of Mandeville’s text, retelling selected stories in modernized English and sprinkling the text with chapbook-style woodcut illustrations. Clearly, the purpose had long since shifted to entertainment. This version includes only particular information about sites along the way, such as pieces of the true cross, relevant biblical tales, or plausible information about people and traditions from other cultures, such as the Saracens (64–70). Gone are the lengthy descriptions of geographical features and various deformed people and animals. Only brief comments about monsters and oddities such as the land where “People have Heads like Hounds” and the “wild Geese with two heads” appear in the new version (95–96). The editor of the text evidently sacrificed much description to make space for woodcuts. Mandeville’s narrative, already rambling and anecdotal, becomes even more so in this seventeenth-century version as his geographically organized chapters are broken into very brief chapters detailing only a single event, community, anecdote, or biblical story. Though short chapters make sense independently, they detract from the unity of the whole narrative. In this respect, its narrative structure is much like the collections of jests also printed in the late seventeenth century. Josephine Waters Bennett rightly notes of the full version that “Mandeville is a personality who gives inner coherence and life to the book.”24 With the expurgating of much of the description, Mandeville’s narrative voice, and the coherence it bestows on the text, is lost. Mandeville’s narrative might be set in any time period, but some of the medieval texts are clearly grounded in an English past that reflects a nostalgic attitude toward chivalry. The most obvious instance of this is the Arthurian cycle, which was reprinted in chapbook form in this period with the title Great Britain’s Glory (c. 1700). The nationalism is inescapable: by the third page of the chapbook, Arthur is hailed as the “Great Monarch of the Western World” in a dream (sig. A3r). He fights a giant, wins the woman he loves, and dies in peace. Arthur, however, is presented as the product of an earlier time that is now gone. At the very end of the chapbook, the narrator writes that his “Tomb (richly adorned) continued visible till the Dissolution of the Fabrick in the time of Henry the Eighth” (sig. C4v). Arthur’s crusades against the Saracens and his other exploits happened in a distant, Catholic past, and not even the traces of his tomb lasted into the Protestant present. 112 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

The romances of Bevis of Hampton and Guy of Warwick are similar in their portrayal of the past. The 1689 prose version of Bevis has a greater sense of nostalgia than is found in earlier versions of the text. The accompanying address to the reader comments that in Bevis “you will find things that may reasonably surmout [sic] an ordinary credit, however in perusing them, you may plainly perceive the difference between Elder times and these we live in, which are too much divolved into effeminacy.”25 These changes indicate one reason for Bevis’s appeal in the late seventeenth century: it takes place before the corruption of modern society. The nationalism of Bevis, as Robert Allen Rouse and Siobhain Bly Calkin have pointed out, is colored by the fact that he trained among the Saracens, not among English fighters.26 The preface to the prose Guy explains that the tale describes qualities “especially in English men, who at this day are Famed for Courage & true Heroick valour.”27 This emphasis on Englishness is absent from earlier versions. The 1565 verse edition refers to “Christendom” rather than England, and the circa 1600 prose retelling attributed to Samuel Smithson only mentions England to set the scene of the action.28 The nationalist view of these stories as part of a distinctly English folklore tradition is an invention of the late seventeenth century. The connection between folklore, medieval romance, and narrative prose is very clear in Valentine and Orson, first printed in 1510 by de Worde and available both as a 200-page octavo work and as a 24-page chapbook in the late seventeenth century.29 Both are in modernized English, printed in black letter font with woodcuts. The story tells of two children of a banished queen, one of whom is adopted by the king, and the other raised by a bear in the woods. Valentine captures his wild brother Orson, and after fighting they discover they are brothers and have a long, episodic series of adventures (47, 90–97). Motifs common to Bevis and Guy are readily apparent, such as a joust and a battle with the Saracens, and a merchant defeats a treacherous priest in a scene of vigilante justice similar to Robin Hood (32–36). One important effect of the medieval setting is that there is more room for fantasy even in a mostly realistic tale: at one point, Valentine fights a winged dragon that breathes fire (149). The setting in the past enables impossible events such as the dragon to seem more credible. The preface to the reader explains how the story might appeal to a modern audience: first because “in Valentine is Comprehended the Education of Art; and in Orson the true working of Nature,” and second because it contains such a variety of events, from “the cares and troubles of Kings” to “the Sorrows of Distressed Reprints of Earlier English Fiction · 113

Ladies” (sig. A3r). Readers are therefore called to Valentine and Orson both for its allegorical implications and for its literal, specific actions. Bevis, Guy, Valentine and Orson, and others are similar in their narrative structures and audience appeal, but some of the reprinted fiction was clearly meant for a very different readership. One of the oddest but most successful medieval reprints is a collection of stories and morals called the Gesta Romanorum, or the “Deeds of Rome.” Many of the stories have classical origins, including Ovid and other identifiable sources: the first story, for example, is about Atalanta staging a footrace between her suitors, from book 10 of Metamorphoses. Each is prefaced by an “argument,” which provides a Christian allegorical reading of each tale, often as long as the tale itself. The moral to the story of Atalanta, for example, begins by explaining, “By this Emperor is understood the Father of Heaven, and by the Damsel is understood the Soul of man, with whom many Devils desire to run.”30 In some cases the relation of the moral to the story is a stretch: in the ninth story, for example, the militaristic Roman emperor Pompey gives a feast, which the moral explains is equivalent to “our Savior Jesus Christ, that proclaimeth a feast; that is, the joyes of Heaven” (sig. B5r). The morals are often only very loosely linked to the stories, and both would make sense independently. There is little consistency among the stories and morals (the emperors in different stories could represent Christ, God, humanity, or something else altogether), and they do not appear to be arranged in a particular sequence. Given the predominance of the didactic morals, Gesta Romanorum is not in the same category of fiction as Reynard, Bevis, or other romances: it is evidently meant for a much more religious audience. The morals may even be meant to justify the reading and writing of non-Christian fictional tales—and in that sense, Gesta Romanorum could appeal to an audience that was opposed to fiction as untruth or frivolity. A reader of Gesta Romanorum would likely be seeking the morals, since many of the stories by themselves were available elsewhere. Gesta Romanorum has been almost entirely ignored by modern critics, but it was reprinted many times throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—sixteen different editions after 1660, according to the ESTC. The stories and associated morals evidently appealed to some segment of the reading public, and they continued to find an audience long after other fictions became widely available. For readers in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, this was the extent to which medieval literature extended into fiction. Some of the works that we now think of as crucial to medieval literary history prob114 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

ably would have attracted readers in this period, but they were unknown— Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight were only rediscovered in manuscript by nineteenth-century philologists, and Piers Plowman was printed in two Middle English editions in the sixteenth century but not again thereafter. The most puzzling absence is Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, which was printed in verse in the seventeenth century and has narratives that seem well suited for prose. Modernized verse editions were printed throughout this period, so there would have been some reason to think that a prose version would meet with success. The medieval literature that made it into prose fiction versions in the late seventeenth century was not what modern critics today would consider the most important works. Given the lack of information about when a book was originally written (except in the case of Mandeville), most readers would not have known that these texts had such old origins, nor would they have been able to distinguish them from texts written more recently but set in the Middle Ages. They might have recognized these as describing a period of the English past, but have no idea when that was or how it differed from the present. As Reynard, Robin Hood, and the other medieval fictions were rewritten, abridged, and illustrated, they passed into the realm of folklore rather than historical literature—and became indistinguishable from newer tales set in the past.

Reprints of Elizabethan Fiction Elizabethan fictions and their seventeenth-century afterlives have received far more critical attention than medieval texts in studies of the “rise of the novel.” Many scholars recognize the works of Thomas Deloney, Richard Johnson, Robert Greene, and others as direct predecessors to the “novels” of the eighteenth century, implying a more or less linear progression of narrative complexity and psychological depth.31 Here I shall begin with the works of Elizabethan fiction that were reprinted several times in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and then examine those that were not reprinted much after the early seventeenth century. I argue that the works that found favor with later readers were not those that have received the most attention from modern critics, nor were they those that have the closest resemblance to modern “novels.” Instead, the Elizabethan fictions that were reprinted in the late seventeenth century were those works that either were readily adaptable to the chapbook form, or were divided Reprints of Earlier English Fiction · 115

into many short segments that could be read independently. Long romances with complex plots did not find widespread favor. The works that continued to be reprinted at the end of the seventeenth century were mostly first published in the 1590s, except for a few outliers like John Lyly’s Euphues (1574). Unlike the medieval texts, Elizabethan fictions were mostly reprinted in their original language (though sometimes abridged), so by the beginning of the eighteenth century, the reprints of Dorastus and Fawnia or Thomas of Reading sounded distinctly dated—more so than the medieval fictions that received periodic updating. References to the Tudor monarchs in these fictions provide specific settings. Interestingly, two of the most frequently studied works of Elizabethan fiction—Thomas Nashe’s The Unfortunate Traveller (1594) and Philip Sidney’s Arcadia (1590)—were not reprinted separately in this period, and so were perhaps not as influential on eighteenth-century novels as has been assumed. A number of early seventeenth-century works of fiction continued to be reprinted throughout the entire eighteenth century. Chapbook versions of The History of Fryer Bacon (original pre-1625; chapbook c. 1690), The Life of Long Meg of Westminster (original 1620; chapbook c. 1650), and The History of Sir Richard Whittington (original pre-1640; chapbook 1678) capitalized on a romantic nostalgia for Elizabethan and Jacobean England as a bygone, idealized world. Of these, Richard Whittington is perhaps the most unusual in that it is based on the life of a real person who was, as the title page proclaims, “Three Times Lord Mayor of London” and “Who lived in the time of King Henry the Fifth, in the year 1419.”32 Despite this emphasis on Whittington’s political rise, the most famous part of the story is his trading his cat for a fortune to a foreign ruler troubled by mice. This is apparently fictional, though the cat story appeared in ballad form prior to the prose version of Whittington’s history.33 The real Whittington, as Anne F. Sutton points out, was known for his philanthropy and wealth.34 The writer of the preface trumpets the hero’s Englishness, explaining that “I here present unto thee no strange or Foreign News, no imagination, or vain conceit of Poetical fiction; neither do I tell thee of Gargantua, or of the Red-Rose-Knight, nor such like Stories” (sig. A1v). The preface emphasizes the plausibility of Whittington’s story and its connection with London and England. Such an incredible tale of upward social mobility and wealth could only happen in England, the preface suggests. Although the writer of the chapbook is evidently aware of the circa 1419 date of Whittington’s

116 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

life, the woodcut illustrations depict the characters in Elizabethan costume (broad ruffed collars), and there is little sense of when the story occurs. The story of Faustus (original in English 1592; chapbook 1664, rep. 1690) also looked backward on an earlier era in its setting and major conflicts to highlight the limits of medieval learning and religious thought. The version of Faustus that was reprinted in the eighteenth century emphasized the intellectual side of the story rather than the tragic fall of the title character. Faustus has no psychological struggle about committing his soul to the devil. Instead, after an initial protest that “I will have my Request, and yet I will not be damned,” he realizes he cannot bargain with Mephistopheles and soon “he was fully resolved in himself rather than to want his Pleasure, to do what the Spirit and his Lord should condition upon.”35 Very little attention is paid to Faustus’s thinking, except as expressed in his conversations with Mephistopheles. More than ten pages of the eighty-page text are given to Faustus’s questions about Hell and the explanations he receives, with detailed descriptions of burning souls and mists of fire. Mephistopheles even takes Faustus to see Hell for himself before he dies (sig. D2v– D3v). After his further travels around the world and to Heaven, he returns to Germany, where he becomes known for his scholarship. The latter half of the book describes different tricks he plays on people he encounters, mostly for comic effect (giving a knight a pair of horns, conjuring up feasts, making the wheels fall off a wagon). Faustus’s death is portrayed as a lesson “by which all Christians may take an Example and Warning” (sig. K2v). The dramatic final scene, in which Faustus’s students find his broken remains after Mephistopheles has killed him, is tempered by a strict admonition to the reader to avoid the devil. The intellectual emphasis of the chapbook contrasts with other seventeenth-century versions of the Faust story. The comic elements are distinctly muted—the scene of Faustus scaring the Pope, common in other versions, is omitted here, as are scenes of Faustus’s lust or depravity. J. W. Smeed is right in his assessment that “the original Faust chapbook was clearly intended to combine moralizing with entertainment; the chapters dealing with Faust’s magic tricks link it with other popular compilations of the age.”36 Faust’s tricks are indeed similar to those of Scogin’s Jests or Tom Tram, though less bawdy. But the graphic descriptions of the tortures of Hell seem to relate more to the allegorical tradition of Keach and Bunyan than to chapbook literature. Although William Mountfort’s farcical adap-

Reprints of Earlier English Fiction · 117

tation of the Faust story was revived and printed in this same period, there was evidently an audience for the more serious version of the tale as well.37 Among Elizabethan writers of prose fiction, one of those who fared the best in the eighteenth century was Emanuel Ford. His History of Parismus (1598) and Famous History of Montelion (before 1633) were each reprinted at least nine times after 1690. Both are set in imaginary versions of real places (Parismus in Bohemia and Thessaly, and Montelion in Assyria and Armenia) and imitate the chivalric romances of Bevis and Guy. Parismus is a courtier and lover: his main conflict occurs when he falls in love with the beautiful Laurana, but her father wants her to marry Sicanus. Sicanus hires men to kill Parismus, but he ends up being rescued by a group of outlaws. Parismus spends much of the rest of the book courting Laurana, while fighting invading Persians under the nom de guerre of “Black Knight.” This plot, however, ends after about ninety pages with the death of Sicanus and the marriage of Parismus to Laurana. From here, the narrative switches to focus on the love of Pollipus for Violetta, and the postmarital adventures of Parismus and Laurana. At the end of the first volume, these plotlines appear to be complete: Parismus and Laurana return to Thessaly, and Pollipus marries Violetta. There is no apparent need for a sequel, and the second volume has to begin by creating new problems for the characters (Parismus returns to Bohemia, and Violetta becomes lost after running from a bear). This makes The Pleasant History of Parismus seem episodic, without any clear narrative arc: it could keep going, volume after volume, introducing new characters and new problems. Parismus plays only a minor role in the second volume, and does not guide or control the action. Ford’s narrative structure is somewhat tighter in the shorter The Famous History of Montelion, which describes the romance of Montelion’s parents, his early years, and his attempt to win the love and hand of Philotheta. While the narrative is hardly focused—Montelion is not even born until page 41—all the characters and incidents do clearly relate to his life. The final scene reunites Montelion’s parents from the first part of the story, and shows Montelion marrying Philotheta. Ford does not seem very concerned with realism in either narrative, but Montelion includes several passages of sensory description, including details like “the Brightness glittering with such Reflection of the Sun-beams round about” an enchanted castle (47). It also has much more description of battle than does Parismus, including gruesome details about the massacre of children: “If they found an Assyrian Woman married to an Armenian Man, both she and all her Children dyed; 118 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

and if they found a Woman with Child, or having any Children that she could not shew an Assyrian was the Father of them, they had all of them been slain” (67). Such vivid description of the less savory aspects of war is not found in the more chivalric medieval romances. The works of Richard Johnson were the most frequently reprinted of those by Elizabethan writers—but the favored text was his plodding Famous History of the Seven Champions of Christendom, not the bouncier Tom a Lincoln. Johnson, like Ford, has not been particularly well regarded by modern scholars of early fiction: Richard Proudfoot asserts that “Johnson was in every sense a derivative writer,” borrowing from source material “under a light disguise of novelty.”38 This is an unfair assessment: Johnson does get his basic stories from legends, but he rewrites them as modern prose. The Seven Champions begins with the story of Saint George, but he is, in fact, the last to arrive: the enchantress who steals him after his birth shows him the horses belonging to the other six champions, and he frees them from her spell (sig. B1v–B2r). George is portrayed throughout as a leader among the champions, saving the others more than once, and he is repeatedly called “the English knight,” which adds a nationalistic view to the Seven Champions absent from the original stories. At one point he swears “by the honour of my Country, England . . . the place of my Nativity and as I am a true Christian Knight” (sig. L3r). He puts his Englishness and his birthplace first, before his Christianity. Johnson’s version also romanticizes the stories, in some cases diverging sharply from the legend. George’s most famous adventure, his slaying of the dragon, occupies less than half a page in the 255-page volume, but his attraction to the Egyptian maid Sabra goes on for several pages and crops up through the rest of the narrative (sig. B4r–D3r). The whole has a distinct lack of Christian evangelism and focuses almost entirely on the adventures, travels, and battles undertaken by the champions, rather than their religious conversions or tests of faith. This is very surprising considering that four of the seven champions were Christian martyrs. By the end of the second part all of the seven champions are dead; part 3 continues with the exploits of their sons—emphasizing, beginning with the title page, “The Warlike Exploits and Martial performances” and “Their strange Fights and Combats with Gyants, Monsters, and Dragons . . . in defense of the Christian Religion, and relief of distressed Knights and Ladies.” There is no sense in part 3 of “Christendom” being anything more than another name for the Western world. Reprints of Earlier English Fiction · 119

The History of the Seven Wise Masters of Rome is similar to the Seven Champions in that it too is a moralistic story without religious didacticism, but it does not have the same nationalist rhetoric. It was first printed anonymously in 1576 and reprinted more than twenty times in the eighteenth century alone. The premise of the story is that Diocletian, son of an emperor, is put under the instruction of the “Seven Wise Masters.” In a scenario very similar to the biblical tale of Potiphar’s wife, he visits home and his father’s new wife tries to seduce him; when he refuses, she complains that he attacked her and demands his death. The wise masters are each brought in to defend their pupil by telling the anecdotal tales of wronged or triumphant virtue that make up the bulk of the text. The masters end up being irrelevant: after they tell their tales, Diocletian exonerates himself by telling his father the truth. The Emperor requires no convincing, exclaiming immediately, “O wretched Woman! Was not thy Ribauld sufficient to fulfil thy foul and letcherous Appetite, but wouldest also have made my Son?”39 Diocletian tells a lengthy story of his own, and at the end the Empress and her lover are put to death. The Seven Wise Masters is digressive, and the frame narrative is mainly in place to provide a reason for the stories—but the tales do not relate well to the situation presented in the frame, and the masters are interchangeable secondary characters. Contrary to expectations raised by the title, the reader is never provided with the “History” of any of the Seven Masters. The Elizabethan works discussed so far do not resemble eighteenthcentury “novels” like Pamela or Crusoe. Yet clearly they appealed to readers of fiction in the eighteenth century, even after works like Crusoe were also available. The works more often cited by critics as forerunners of the modern “novel” appear not to have had such lasting popularity. Short versions of Deloney’s The History of the Gentle Craft and Thomas of Reading survived as chapbook reprints. But his longer and more complex Jack of Newbery was only reprinted three times after 1690, after running through fifteen editions in the seventeenth century. Jack of Newbery has a meandering plot, describing how Jack marries his master’s widow and eventually becomes a wealthy clothier, leading the other clothiers to petition the king when exportation laws hurt their trade. Unlike Thomas of Reading, who is boiled alive halfway through his own story, Jack is the hero in his adventures in business and love, tying them together with a consistent portrayal of his character. Jack of Newbery does not have the bawdiness and violence of Thomas of Reading

120 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

or the folklore tradition of The History of the Gentle Craft, which may have led to its dropping out of favor. In the twentieth century, critics lauded Deloney’s fiction for its simple prose style and portrayal of the “middle and lower class” struggling against an oppressive aristocracy.40 In fact, the presentation of the aristocracy is mostly positive—rather, the Catholic Church is made to seem oppressive. In Jack of Newbery, for example, Jack sends his servants to fight in battle and earns the favor of the monarchs. Queen Catherine tells him that “though a Clothier by Trade, yet a Gentleman by condition, and a faithfull subject in heart: and if thou chance to have any sute in Court, make account the Queen will be thy friend.”41 Nor do the monarchs renege on this: they visit Jack while on progress, and King Henry (VIII) allows merchants to trade freely when he hears that Jack is petitioning (sig. G1v). Jack’s main enemy is Cardinal Wolsey, who delays carrying out the order about free trade and tries to hurt Jack by telling the Duke of Sommerset that “were this Jack of Newbery well examined, he would be found to be infected with Luther’s Spirit” (sig. G2r). Thomas of Reading, similarly, is helped by King Henry (I), who allows the clothiers to “draw up their Grievances” and tells a nobleman that he will “stand in the Defence of them and this Country against all Opposers, whilst I am able to wield my Sword, or to the last drop of my Blood.”42 This is a very strong statement of support for the clothiers. Rather than showing “the aristocracy as parasitic,” as Paul Devine claims, Deloney’s aristocracy is wholly on the side of the tradesmen.43 Lyly’s Euphues, or The Anatomy of Wit, like Jack of Newbery, was reprinted a number of times in the seventeenth century but only twice in the eighteenth. Unlike the Deloney fictions, which were reprinted at regular intervals, Euphues appeared in more than a dozen editions between 1578 and 1636, but not again until 1716, when it was rewritten to emphasize the romance plot and renamed Euphues and Lucilla: Or, The False Friend and Inconstant Mistress. This version states on the title page that it is “revis’d, and render’d into Modern English,” which seems to mean trimming down the instructional matter from Lyly’s version, adding more reflection on the love plot, and modernizing the language. A speech from “Diophantus,” recounting “that men shoulde either bee sober, or drincke little wine, that woulde have sober and discrete children,” is transformed in the later version to “Our Ancestors wisely observ’d, that Men, who desired sober and discreet Children, should themselves be sober and prudent, not given to

Reprints of Earlier English Fiction · 121

Wine and Women.”44 The whole passage is severely abridged, and references to archaic sources are excised. The cuts and rewriting serve to make Euphues sound like an eighteenth-century work, though the title page states clearly that it was “Written Originally . . . in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth.” The love plot, emphasized in the later version, tells how Euphues and his friend Philautus fall in love with the same woman. While Philautus and Euphues are exchanging curses, another man woos and marries their beloved. This rather predictably ends with “Euphues and Philautus having had Conference between themselves . . . renewed their old Friendship” (65). Added to the narrative are several letters remarking on different aspects of the story. This makes for a chaotic organization to the text: Merritt Lawlis comments “that it may not be primarily a work of prose fiction so much as a tract of some kind,” but there is no apparent overall point.45 The initial narrative is fairly compact, but the letters are highly disjunctive and in some cases do not relate to the main love plot. R. W. Maslen is referring to the political implications of Euphues when he writes that it “is an uneasy volume, ready at any moment to fly apart at the seams,” but its narrative structure also reinforces this lack of coherence.46 The “high” Elizabethan romance seems to have mostly fallen out of favor by the late seventeenth century. One exception to this is Robert Greene’s Pandosto, or The History of Dorastus and Fawnia (original 1588), which was reprinted seven times after 1690 in a double-size chapbook of forty-eight pages. The tale has mainly attracted critical attention because it is the basis for Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, but in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries it was reprinted regularly. The basic plot is very simple: The king of Bohemia suspects his queen of infidelity and imprisons her. She gives birth to a daughter, whom he casts into the sea, but the baby is rescued and raised by shepherds as Fawnia. Years pass, then a prince named Dorastus meets Fawnia and falls in love with her, bringing her to Bohemia, where the king recognizes her as his child. Lori Humphrey Newcomb argues that the transformation of Pandosto, which is written in the high romance mode of Sidney, into a short chapbook available to a wide variety of readers demonstrates that “fiction was read by increasingly diverse audiences, and their tastes were read as constituting a subordinate cultural category.”47 While we have little information about what readers thought of the text, Newcomb’s analysis of the changes Pandosto undergoes as it is shortened and illustrated with woodcuts is convincing in explaining why this tale continued to be reprinted. Unlike the complex plot of Arcadia, 122 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

Pandosto was simple enough to be adaptable to different formats without losing its tone and plot. Sidney’s Arcadia, the classic example of Elizabethan high romance, was mostly reprinted in severely abridged form in the period 1690–1730: the only complete edition of the work appeared as part of a 15s collected works in 1725.48 This is an important and overlooked point in considering Sidney’s influence on later fiction writers. While some people may have read the (presumably expensive) 1674 folio edition of Arcadia, which was likely still available secondhand in the early eighteenth century, most readers would only have encountered the work through the abridgment or Francis Quarles’s poetic rendering of the Argalus and Parthenia section. Quarles keeps Sidney’s style of high language but streamlines the plot to focus on just one set of lovers. A number of late seventeenth-century fictions appear to be part of the same tradition as Arcadia, but whether this is on account of Sidney’s work or some common origin is impossible to say. This is especially the case considering that, as Sidney’s modern editor Victor Skretkowicz explains, Arcadia includes “recognizable passages from other authors.”49 Arcadia in full was likely too expensive for most readers, and its intricately entwined plot would not lend itself to the short, choppy reading practice that works like Gesta Romanorum or The Seven Wise Masters practically require. When one looks at the reprint history of Arcadia and Euphues, Roger Pooley’s comment that “the influence of Sidney needs to be set alongside the influence of John Lyly in the history of Elizabethan fiction” takes on a new sense of ironic truth.50 Neither one could have exerted much influence on early eighteenth-century fiction, as neither was readily available. Besides Sidney, the other notable Elizabethan fiction writer not reprinted in the early eighteenth century was Thomas Nashe. Nashe is now one of the most frequently studied fiction writers of his time.51 His resurgence might be due to the very ambiguities in his text, attractive to modern critics, which made his work less relevant to readers in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Stephen S. Hilliard argues that Nashe “is trying to situate his prose in the middle ground between the derivative and overworked language of academics and the ignorance of popular writers.”52 Given that those “popular writers” like Richard Johnson found favor throughout the seventeenth century, Nashe’s style might have been too obtuse for a market looking for entertainment and too bawdy for readers seeking intellectual stimulus. Another reason for Nashe’s unpopularity might be his allusive writing and topicality: The Unfortunate Traveller is peppered with referReprints of Earlier English Fiction · 123

ences to Ovid, Galen, Seneca, and other classical authors as well as rulers, writers, and religious leaders from Nashe’s own time and phrases in Latin and Italian. Yet other works such as Gesta Romanorum have plenty of classical allusions and were still reprinted frequently. Whatever sets Nashe apart, The Unfortunate Traveller was successful enough to be printed six times in his own lifetime and not again thereafter. As should be very apparent from this survey, the Elizabethan fiction that was reprinted in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was very different from what is now most frequently studied. This means that our modern perception of Elizabethan fiction—dominated by Nashe and Sidney, with Deloney for the popular audience—is very different from the way earlier readers would have perceived it. If we are looking for influences on and precedents for eighteenth-century fiction, we have to look at what was available to writers in the eighteenth century. Readers were evidently not as interested in the long, complex romance Arcadia as they were in the choppy chivalric tales Parismus and Montelion and the easily excerpted, moralistic adventures of the Seven Champions and the Seven Wise Masters. Nashe and Sidney may be important from an ex post facto perspective in how their prose forms deviated from their predecessors, but they were not influential on their immediate successors. The works that continued to be reprinted into the eighteenth century were those that appealed to a wide variety of readers and were affordably priced or easily abridged so as to be available even at the lower prices of the fiction market.

Seventeenth-Century Fiction Reprinted 1690–1730 While some of the Elizabethan fictions appear to have been perennial favorites through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, comparatively few works from the earlier seventeenth century were reprinted in the 1690s and later. An examination of what was reprinted does not demonstrate much consistency among the works that were in demand after their original publication. Readers of reprints of earlier seventeenth-century fiction were apparently interested in works touching on diverse themes and not necessarily those that follow a single narrative plot. With the exception of Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) and Love-Letters between a Nobleman and His Sister (1684–87), none of these works has received much attention from critics—yet they were successful enough to outlast their first printings and, in some cases, to continue to be reprinted regularly through the end 124 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

of the eighteenth century. A purchaser of fiction in the 1720s or even the 1750s would have found new editions of The History of the Nine Worthies of the World (1687) and The Progress of Sin (1684) alongside newly written works. Fiction of the 1680s is noticeably longer-lasting, and much more of it was reprinted in the early eighteenth century than works from earlier periods. This helps to justify my starting date of 1690: evidently, readers in the eighteenth century noticed some change in the 1680s–1690s fiction that seemed more like early eighteenth-century fiction than earlier works did. Where Reynard and Pandosto were presented as older relics of a past age, Love-Letters and The Progress of Sin were presented with almost no notice of their being written and published earlier. Reprinting of English Fiction Originally Published 1610–1660

While many of the Elizabethan works of fiction that survived were reprinted regularly for more than a century after their original publication, seventeenth-century fiction did not have as much perennial appeal. Of thirty-four works of seventeenth-century fiction reprinted in the period 1690–1730, twenty-two titles are from the 1680s. Just twelve works first printed between (approximately) 1610 and 1679 were reprinted in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. This is not to say that the works from the 1680s were necessarily better in quality or more popular, but even just one reprinted edition might cause them to appear as reprints post 1690. In fact, out of the twenty-two works from the 1680s reprinted in the next decade or later, just eight were reprinted more than three times. This may seem like a large number of titles when compared to how many medieval works were reprinted, but it is astonishingly small considering how much fiction published in the seventeenth century was never reprinted. Mish’s bibliography lists dozens of works of fiction from the period 1610– 79. He records between eight and fifteen new works of English fiction each decade in the seventeenth century, but almost none of these lasted into the eighteenth. The fact that such a high percentage of works from the late seventeenth century were in demand in the early eighteenth, while earlier seventeenth-century fictions were not, indicates a shift in the type of fiction produced. Between the Elizabethan period and the very late seventeenth century, almost no works of fiction managed to outlast their original generation. Reprints of Earlier English Fiction · 125

Several works achieved fame in their own time, such as John Barclay’s Argenis (1625), Theophania (1655), The Princess Cloria (1661), and Robert Boyle’s Parthenissa (1651–69). But none of these survived the immediate circumstances for their political allegory and the vogue for their high romance language. Works such as Mary Wroth’s Urania (1621) and Margaret Cavendish’s Blazing World (1666) were not reprinted much at all, and mainly gain the attention of modern critics on account of their uniqueness rather than their influence. As with the Elizabethan works, there are certain problems in determining when some texts originated. The earliest extant edition of The Merry Tales of the Madmen of Gotham, a chapbook collection of trickster and fool tales, is from 1690—but given that it is supposedly compiled by Andrew Boorde, who died in 1549, it must have earlier origins.53 Similar problems arise with the chapbook editions of Scogin’s Jests (orig. 1626), Cawwood the Rook (orig. 1656), and The Blind Beggar of Bednal-Green (orig. 1659). No Jest Like a True Jest is about the highwayman James Hind, who died in 1652, and the earliest edition of the chapbook appeared in 1657. Given such difficulties in dating texts, the only work of fiction that we can say for certain first appeared between 1610 and 1660 and was reprinted in the period 1690–1730 is James Harrington’s The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656). As fiction, Oceana seems very strange. It does not have characters, or even a plot or setting, but is a political manifesto about a utopian society. Harrington describes Oceana as though it exists, even comparing its civil war to those in “Spain, France, Germany, and other Monarchys of this kind” (53). The comparisons to real places and descriptions of unrest make clear that much of Oceana’s history is derived from English events of the first half of the seventeenth century, and that its idealized democracy is a hope for England’s future.54 Yet Oceana’s appeal cannot be explained solely by its immediate political applications. John Toland’s edition of Harrington’s collected works was published in 1700, so Oceana attracted readers even after the civil war was a generation in the past. Andrew Sharp posits that it continued to be politically relevant, so “in the 1670s and in the 1690s, [the prefatory discourse] would read as a tract against standing armies, but not against the ‘ancient’ form of mixed monarchical government.”55 J. G. A. Pocock argues that Harrington’s writing “provided much of the language for a profoundly significant if immediately sterile debate on what the Lords had been and what they might be again; and this was the transformation of theory into ideology through which Harrington’s thought was enabled to 126 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

go on.”56 Harrington’s language and his oppositional writing were universal enough to apply to other causes besides the specific issues of voting and the election of legislators. By using the medium of a fictional utopian world to convey his political agenda, Harrington made his theory applicable to a wider audience. Many of the other English fictions from the early and midseventeenth century did not have such broad implications and could not survive the circumstances for which they were written. Reprinting of English Fiction Originally Published 1660–1679

Compared to the earlier seventeenth-century fiction, which mostly did not last, more works of fiction originally published in 1660–79 continued to be reprinted in the early eighteenth century. Translated works will be covered in the next chapter, but among fiction originally written in English, at least four and possibly eight works were reprinted into the next century.57 The four longer works that can be dated with reasonable assurance are Richard Head’s The English Rogue (1665), The Moral State of England, with the Life of Theodatus and Three Novels (1670), The History of the Five Wise Philosophers (1672), and the first part of Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678). Among these four, The English Rogue stands out for its unique combination of heroism, crime, and penitence. While certainly not the first “rogue” narrative, it is probably the most skillfully written and carefully constructed narrative of this sort. Regularly adapted and abridged, it was reprinted every ten or fifteen years through the end of the eighteenth century. I have elsewhere analyzed revisions to the text at greater length to demonstrate that they reflect a paradigm shift from picaresque fiction to more cohesive narratives held together by first-person narrators.58 The 1688 version streamlined the narrative, excising digressions and enabling The English Rogue to outlast the original vogue for which it was written. The English Rogue achieves narrative cohesion through its consistent narrative voice, the changes Meriton goes through over the course of his life, and the reappearance of characters from different parts of the plot. Meriton’s main alteration occurs when he is arrested for theft and condemned to death. For the first time, he rethinks his mode of life: “I began seriously to reflect upon my past Actions, for now my sleeping Conscience began to be awakened, and the Terrors of Guilt took hold on me” (127). Reprieved at the last moment, he returns to his criminal ways, but the experience of being so near Reprints of Earlier English Fiction · 127

to death leads him to accept transportation as a happy rescue. This indicates a clear shift in his perspective, as earlier in the narrative he had jumped off a ship to avoid being impressed into servitude in Virginia (59–60). While Meriton does not alter his ways after individual experiences, he is evidently meant to have at least a pro forma change of heart between the beginning and the end of his life. The reappearance of characters in different parts of the plot serves to tie the different elements of the narrative together. Meriton’s traveling to India after being banished from England would seem to be leading the story in an entirely new direction until he meets two ladies with whom he had affairs more than a hundred pages earlier (46–48, 171). Usually these are mere coincidences, but on one occasion he tries to renew his relationship with a former master and mistress from his apprentice days. After his near escape from impressment into servitude, and “well weighing what a deal of Hardship I had undergone since I left my Master, I began, with the Prodigal, to think it would be best to return to a setled Life” (61). His master takes him back and he has an affair with the mistress, eventually getting the shop for himself when the couple dies (73). The reuse of characters from earlier parts of the story allows for greater character development over a longer time span. Although the five parts were not originally published together and were written by more than one person, the narrative has a coherence lacking in works like The History of the Gentle Craft and Euphues. The use of fiction to convey morals can be seen in two other works from the 1670s that were reprinted in the next several decades, The Moral State of England and The History of the Five Wise Philosophers. The Moral State of England is not itself a work of fiction, but a treatise about the depraved state of humanity. It includes three “novels,” told under the frame story of three noblemen entertaining each other on a day out. The three novels are highly allegorical, promoting the importance of trusting Providence and respecting both friends and rivals. They have little individualization of characters and almost no description of setting, but there are some details besides the dialogue. Perhaps most interesting for indicating audience and reading practices is a scene in which a lady tells her lover that “just as you appeared at the end of this Walk, I was putting away the hours with Cassandra, and I was just in that part of it where Statira dealt so cruelly with the brave Oroondates when he first discovered his love to her, and I was accusing her very much both of ingratitude, and incivility” (150). She is here referring to a famous episode from the massive French romance Cassandra (1642–50), 128 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

by La Calprenède. Her lover sees himself as Oroondates and takes this as a sign of encouragement of his suit, though the lady meant only to discuss her book and becomes angry when he declares his love. One can infer from this scene that the author of this work expected the reader to be familiar with the expensive, ten-volume Cassandra. The misunderstanding between the lady and her lover also indicates an acknowledged division between proper behavior in real life and appropriate actions in a work of fiction: while the lady finds Oroondates very romantic and admirable in the fiction, she is insulted when her lover makes a similar declaration of love. The Five Wise Philosophers, unlike other works of fiction from this period, targets young people.59 The premise of the story is that a pagan king has a son, Jehosaphat, who is prophesied to become a Christian, so he tries to prevent Jehosaphat from learning about Christianity. Much of the narrative shows Jehosaphat hearing Christian ideas from different people he encounters, eventually converting despite his father’s efforts. Interestingly, the narrative focuses on Jehosaphat and his reactions; it is not an excuse for the author to preach to the reader. When a hermit tells Jehosaphat about Christ, for example, the narrator skips over the important details of the story: “Here he begins to relate the full scope of the Scripture, from the Creation of Adam, to the Passion of Christ; which is known unto all for brevity sake I omit” (sig. B6v). Instead, the narrator repeats the hermit’s story of a benevolent king. The main attraction of The Five Wise Philosophers is the original material—the conversion of Jehosaphat, the tests of his faith through temptation and trial, and finally his conversion of his father to Christianity—that characterize spiritual biographies. By far the longest-lasting and most influential spiritual narrative is Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. The importance and popularity of this work almost cannot be exaggerated when comparing it to other works of fiction from the seventeenth century. It was reprinted on average once a year for the better part of a century after its original 1678 publication and was widely pirated, imitated, abridged, and versified.60 Many other texts refer to it; by the early eighteenth century it was evidently considered the standard for moral writing and allegory.61 Frank Mott Harrison records that Bunyan “has now (1941) a record of more than 1,300 editions and reprints.”62 The general story would probably be known from abridgments by many people who had not seen the full version. Given its longevity and widespread popularity, the large amount of criticism on The Pilgrim’s Progress is not surprising. The two main lines of Reprints of Earlier English Fiction · 129

criticism are those analyzing Bunyan’s theology and religious contexts, and those looking at his narrative technique and importance to the history of fiction.63 The latter of these is my chief concern here. Much of the debate about Bunyan’s contribution to early fiction depends on the fictional nature of allegory and the practice of applicative reading. C. N. Manlove, for example, observes that the realism of Bunyan’s narrative “does reduce its effect as allegory,” since “it becomes hard to translate physical into spiritual traveling where the journey and experience of it are realized in such concrete detail, and where the allegory is left so general.”64 Bunyan’s realism makes his allegory appealing as a fictional narrative, but readers are less able to apply such particularized examples to their own situations. Dayton Haskin’s hypothesis that readers would have read the Bible with “great interpretive and imaginative freedom” after reading The Pilgrim’s Progress is suggestive of various reading practices for religious subjects.65 Michael Davies avoids suppositions about seventeenth-century readers, but bases his analysis on Stanley Fish’s theory of reading a text through “what it does and how it acts upon the reader.”66 Any argument dependent on the reading practices of Bunyan’s original audience is speculative at best. We cannot even tell how the original readers might have come at the text—as a biblical or spiritual narrative, as a personal biography, or as a work of fiction. Bunyan’s fictional techniques help set The Pilgrim’s Progress apart from earlier didactic works like Gesta Romanorum, in which the reported morals supersede the narrative structure. David J. Leigh’s helpful division of part 1 of The Pilgrim’s Progress into six sections—“a Conversion Story,” “a Test Romance,” “a Realistic Temptation Story,” “a second Test Romance,” “a second Realistic Temptation story,” and “an Eschatological Transformation”— highlights the structural symmetry of the first part of the narrative.67 However, Leigh’s labeling of the middle sections as either “Realistic” or “Romance” is overly simplistic. One of the most notable aspects of Bunyan’s allegorical technique is his skillful combination of recognizable elements of the real world with imaginative beings, circumstances, and locations. The beginning of the narrative, for example, shows Christian telling his family that “I am for certain informed, that this our City will be burnt with fire from Heaven.”68 The reaction of his family, rather than being horrified at their impending doom, is to worry about Christian: “At this his relations were sore amazed; not for that they believed that what he had said to them was true, but because they thought that some frenzy distemper had got

130 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

into his head” (9). In the literal world of the narrative, his family is worried about his sanity because he believes he has the sort of knowledge of the future that they think is impossible to know. On an allegorical level, this disbelieving response emphasizes that Christian’s family is not yet thinking about their salvation and is not enlightened enough to worry about their fates. On an imaginative level, Christian’s vivid depiction of fire shooting down from the sky to burn the city extends the boundaries of reality in the context of the story, allowing for the seemingly impossible fate to occur quite literally. Bunyan’s allegorical realism operates in all three realms at once and blurs the distinctions between them. The argument that the main strength of The Pilgrim’s Progress is its combination of these different modes is standard in discussions of the work’s influence in the history of fiction. McKeon, for example, calls it “the literalization of allegory,” and Salzman concludes that “we do The Pilgrim’s Progress an injustice by reading it only as didactic, or only as fable; only as a progress, or only as a stasis; only as realistic, or only as allegorical. All these oppositions combine to form Bunyan’s masterpiece.”69 Critics have generally assumed that Bunyan was revolutionary in combining the apparent opposites of realism and romance, and that his uniqueness lies in his rejection of normal modes. In fact, as I argued in chapter 1, “romance” was mostly not applied to fiction of this period, and it was not considered in opposition to “history.” In prefatory comments, distinction is made between truth, imaginative writing, and allegory, but the writers of prefaces are frequently misleading in identifying what mode the work at hand is written in (as when they claim an imaginative work is true). They clearly did not conceive of these as oppositional or mutually exclusive. Other writers from this period—including Keach, Crouch, and the anonymous authors of other allegorical works—successfully combined these modes as Bunyan does. If Bunyan’s uniqueness is not in his blending of verisimilitude, “romance,” and religion, it must lie in some other quality. One element of the narrative structure of The Pilgrim’s Progress most unusual for this time is the use of a frame narrative in which a person dreams the main parts of the action. The title page of the first part, in fact, says it is “Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream”—not that it is an allegory. Significantly, “Dream” is in all capital letters and is the largest, most visible word on the page. The type used is twice as high as that for the largest letters in the phrase “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Clearly, Bunyan (or at least the compos-

Reprints of Earlier English Fiction · 131

itor of the title page) thought that the dream motif would attract readers. The frontispiece to the first edition shows Bunyan leaning with his head on his hand and his eyes closed, a figure of a small man with a walking stick in the distance.70 The image suggests that Bunyan himself is the sleeping man who dreamed the story of Christian. This dream framework serves three purposes in terms of realism and narrative structure. First, it provides a plausible explanation for the fantastical elements in the narrative: strange things can happen in dreams, so the reader does not have to suspend his or her belief in the real world to believe the narrative. Second, it allows the reader to identify with the dreamer / narrator as an external witness to the action. Third, the consistent dreamer / narrator helps to connect the individual episodes and dialogues. One example of all three of these occurs in the first section, when the narrator explains, “Now I saw in my Dream, that just as they had ended this talk, they drew near to a very Miry Slough that was in the midst of the Plain, and they being heedless, did both fall suddenly into the bogg. The name of the Slow was Dispond” (14). In this passage, the narrator reminds the reader that this is happing in a dream, so the sudden appearance of a bog does not seem implausible. The reader is then privy to information from the narrator that Christian and Pliable do not have (the existence of the bog) and watches externally as they fall into Despond. Finally, this narration connects the previous dialogue of Christian persuading Pliable to join him with the succeeding episode of Help aiding Christian in escaping Despond. The one defining characteristic among the works of fiction from the period 1660–79 that were reprinted in the early eighteenth century is their use of narrative held together by a single plotline. The English Rogue becomes increasingly cohesive and plot-driven in revisions made to it during the last three decades of the seventeenth century, perhaps responding to a general trend favoring unified narratives over digressive plots. The three “novels” in The Moral State of England, similarly, are each more plot-driven and less didactic than the last. Even among didactic works, those that were successful as reprinted editions were those that had substantial narrative qualities, The Five Wise Philosophers and The Pilgrim’s Progress. Writers of these works prioritized story over morals, and even the dialogue moves the plot forward. These are not fictions of deep psychological insight; the plots are propelled by external factors like poverty, parental pressure, or visions of the future.

132 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

Reprinting of English Fiction Originally Published in the 1680s

The Pilgrim’s Progress was followed by a number of allegorical fictions in the 1680s that continued to be reprinted in the early eighteenth century, including The Progress of Sin (1684), Wonderful Prodigies of Judgment and Mercy (1682), and Bunyan’s own The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1680) and The Holy War (1682). At the same time, several highly un-religious fictions found favor with later readers, including scandalous love tales like The Secret History of the Most Renown’d Q. Elizabeth and the E. of Essex (1680) and Love-Letters between a Nobleman and His Sister (1684–87). Of course, many works of fiction from the 1680s were not reprinted, and often there is no clear difference between them and the longer-lasting works. The reasons why only some works are reprinted may be qualitative differences in their content and style that set them apart, copyright issues, publisher and author preferences, or simply the forgettable, temporary nature of hack writing and low-quality production. Given the high cost of printing books, even just one reprint edition represents substantial interest in the work. The high number of reprinted editions of some of these works in the eighteenth century—The Holy War is printed more than thirty times— indicates that there was something in these works from the 1680s that had long-lasting appeal. The relatively high number of fictional works from this decade that lasted as perpetual reprints reflects both the higher numbers of fiction being produced and the qualitative changes that make these works more closely resemble those written in the eighteenth century than their Elizabethan predecessors. Mish’s bibliography lists sixty-two new works of fiction originally written in English during the 1680s—more than double the number from any decade in the first half of the seventeenth century. This may be the result of greater book production or of greater interest in fiction, but either way, there is significantly more 1680s fiction reprinted in the early eighteenth century than any previous decade. Approximately a third of the works of fiction first printed in the 1680s was reprinted in the following four decades. Bunyan’s first attempt to follow up the success of The Pilgrim’s Progress was The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1680), which he envisioned as a counterpart to his allegory of the passage to virtue by showing “the Life and Death of the Ungodly, and of their travel from this world to Hell.”71 It

Reprints of Earlier English Fiction · 133

is in the form of a long dialogue between Mr. Wiseman and Mr. Attentive, but is not an allegory like The Pilgrim’s Progress. As a child, Badman lies and steals; as an adult, he drinks, visits whores, and pretends to be religious so he can seduce an honest woman. These are perfectly believable crimes, and except for the allegorical names given to the characters, Mr. Badman could be read as literally as The English Rogue. Both Wiseman and Attentive digress to tell anecdotes of other sinners, which they make as believable as possible. At one point, Wiseman tells of a man who turned himself in for his crimes and was hanged, and Attentive responds, “This is a remarkable Story indeed, and you think it is a true one,” implying doubt. Wiseman explains, “As for the truth of this Story, the Relator told me that he was at the same time himself in the Court, and stood, within less than two yards of old Tod, when he heard him aloud to utter the words” (24–25). This is very different from Bunyan’s earlier allegorical technique, in which the “similitude of a dream” eliminates the need for eyewitness veracity. The latter half of Mr. Badman tells how “he was stricken by the hand of God” and eventually dies impenitent (150, 340). The dialogue format, the character names, and the didactic anecdotes mark Mr. Badman as an allegory meant mainly to teach religious morals, but its central story is similar to other seventeenthcentury rogue tales. Unlike The Pilgrim’s Progress, which was extremely popular from its first publication and was frequently reprinted for centuries thereafter, Mr. Badman was only reprinted in English five times in the next hundred years: 1685, 1688, 1696, 1772, and 1774. Why might this be? There is no reason to think this is because of a copyright problem, since Nathaniel Ponder was also the bookseller listed on the imprint of The Pilgrim’s Progress and The Holy War. If there were a market for Mr. Badman, he would likely reprint it with equal frequency. Bunyan was, by far, Ponder’s most successful writer, and he fought vehemently to retain the copyright to Bunyan’s works.72 A more probable explanation for the comparative lack of reprints of Mr. Badman comes from what Roger Sharrock calls “the extraordinary contrast” between Mr. Badman and the first part of The Pilgrim’s Progress.73 Sharrock is referring to the fact that Mr. Badman does not in fact continue the story of Christian from The Pilgrim’s Progress, as Bunyan claims in the preface. More recently, Michael Austin has made the compelling argument “that readers wanted more of the concrete narrative of The Pilgrim’s Progress, not its abstract theology,” which led to “the relative obscurity” of Mr. Badman.74 According to Austin, readers expect to find the same type of story, narrative 134 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

voice, and characters in a sequel as in the original work. Instead, they found a rogue tale fitted into a moralizing dialogue analyzing Badman’s mistakes. Evidently, this mixture of real-life sins and allegorical commentary did not work as well for readers interested primarily in story or for readers looking for theology as either one individually might have, and Mr. Badman did not achieve the success of Bunyan’s other fictions. Bunyan’s two subsequent allegories are more in the biblical style of The Pilgrim’s Progress than the real-world mode of Mr. Badman, and were reprinted more often. The Holy War (1682) describes how Shaddai (Hebrew for “Almighty”) fights with Diabolus (the devil) for a town called Mansoul. Shaddai ultimately wins, teaching Mansoul how to fight against Diabolus in the future. The other allegory, the second part of The Pilgrim’s Progress (1684), is very similar to the first part and describes the journey of Christian’s wife, Christiana, and their children to the world to come. They pass through many of the same locations as Christian does, though more attention is given to the particular trials of women and young people in choosing marriage partners and raising children. The didactic aims and allegorical structure of the narrative are very similar to those of the first part. Several writers in a didactic vein similar to Bunyan also wrote works that outlasted their initial publication, but none were as skillful in blending allegory, narrative, and real life. Keach’s allegories, The Travels of True Godliness (1683) and The Progress of Sin (1684), personify godliness and sin in order to demonstrate the proper way of life and the hidden dangers that cause people to stray. The first work, True Godliness, does not devote much space to building the fictional allegory: the narrator comments of Godliness that “every line and lineament, Veins, Nerves and Sinews of him are in such an exact and admirable order placed, that is to his beauty there can be no addition,” but he avoids “pompous Garbs” including “Oyl, and Holy Water, with divers other ridiculous Ceremonies” (5–6). Keach’s Godliness does have some personified features giving him a physical body, but the mention of oil and water as clothing is clearly meant to be figurative even in the context of the allegory. The main plot shows Godliness traveling through the world and engaging in dialogues similar to those in The Pilgrim’s Progress with personified characteristics like Riches, Pride, and Covetousness. Adding to Godliness’s credibility are numerous references to scripture scattered throughout his speeches and inserted as marginal citations. The whole is vehemently anti- Catholic: True Godliness not only strives to counteract sin, he also has to thwart “Counterfeit Godliness,” which takes the form of Reprints of Earlier English Fiction · 135

Catholicism (46). Most of the work has little narration or attention to plot; almost all of the text consists of dialogues. The sequel, The Progress of Sin, has more plot and narration, and more attention given to the allegorical figures as fictional characters. The main premise is that the devil Apollyon gives Sin the task of working against Godliness to persuade people to be irreligious. Keach supports his interpretation of scriptural passages with references to theologians, such as Henry Ainsworth (36). Godliness here represents Protestant Christianity, and Keach makes Catholicism the work of Sin: “he began to erect this false Form and Image of Christianity, or set up Counterfeit Godliness[;] . . . a Strange Idol, he had made out of a Wafer Cake; by which means, they murder’d many Thousands, if not Millions of Thousands, of the poor, innocent Saints and Servants of God” (56–57). The anti-Catholic sentiments, initially fairly subtle compared with True Godliness, become more pronounced as the allegory progresses: illustrations figure the Pope as fighting against the Holy City alongside Lucifer, Beelzebub, Apollyon, and the Turks (153–55). Keach’s allegory depends on the anecdotes of conversion and temptation being plausible, so the narrator sometimes refers to less credible stories but comments that “because some are not easily brought to believe such things, I will say no more” (66). Unlike Bunyan, who constantly reminds the reader that the allegory is part of a dream and is not meant to be real, Keach’s allegory supposedly occurs in the real world. Keach presents Godliness and Sin as though they are walking, invisible, among his readers. Three works by “R. B.” and published by Nathaniel Crouch have a similar didactic appeal but do not use allegory. Two of these, Wonderful Prodigies of Judgment and Mercy (1682) and Unparallel’d Varieties (1683), are collections of anecdotes with clear morals, mostly culled from other sources. Both are apparently meant, as the title page of Unparallel’d Varieties states, for “Discovering the Transcendent Effects; Of Love, Friendship, and Gratitude,” among other positive qualities, “And, on the contrary, the Tremendous Consequences, Of Hatred, Revenge, and Ingratitude” along with other vices. The anecdotes are very short, half a page or less, and relate to each other only in broad meaning, not in content. There is no sense of narrative continuation; anecdotes about people from all corners of the world, from ancient, medieval, and modern sources, and about both famous and anonymous people are intermingled. Such variety encourages the same type of reading as the episodic chapbooks and collections of jests do: reading selected stories individually, rather than the extended reading 136 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

practice required for a more complex, longer narrative. The third of the Crouch fictions, The History of the Nine Worthies of the World (1687), has more intricate plots because there are only nine stories in the same length of volume, so they are much longer. Unlike Wonderful Prodigies and Unparallel’d Varieties, where part of the attraction would have been that many of the stories were not widely available elsewhere, or only in expensive and rare volumes, versions of at least some of the stories of the Nine Worthies were printed in other cheap formats. Nine Worthies would likely be bought by readers interested in Alexander, Caesar, or Arthur already, as well as readers who had never heard the stories. At least in part, Nine Worthies is capitalizing on the familiarity and fame of the characters as well as newness. While the didactic and allegorical fiction was attracting a religious audience, scandal fiction with love-based plots appealed to readers looking for something other than moral instruction. The two most important of the 1680s scandal fictions to be reprinted were The Secret History of the Most Renowned Q. Elizabeth and the E. of Essex (1680, rep. 1695), and LoveLetters between a Nobleman and His Sister (1684–87). Both of these were reprinted regularly through the 1760s, and clearly found favor even long after their immediate political contexts were gone. Q. Elizabeth and the E. of Essex attributes a great secret passion to Elizabeth as an explanation for her never marrying.75 The first part of the story is told by Elizabeth to her confidant, relating how she fell in love with Essex only to find that he actually loved the Countess of Rutland (21). Essex secretly turns on Elizabeth, aiding the Irish rebels, and is eventually caught. In the second part, told by a third-person narrator, Elizabeth nearly pardons him, but then discovers that he had secretly married Rutland, so in a fit of jealousy she allows him to be executed (110). Elizabeth resolves to pardon him too late, and she “languish’d out the Rest of her Life” (113). She is portrayed as an unfortunate lover who is petty and vengeful when wronged. The author of Q. Elizabeth and the E. of Essex handles the real events, rumor, and fiction very carefully, increasing the plausibility of the love plot by capitalizing on known facts and suspected secrets. Specific references to real people like Rutland and actual events, such as “the Troubles of Ireland,” ground the narrative to real life (33). The choice of this particular story to rework into a scandal fiction may help to explain its success. Elizabeth was well known from other sources (including ballads and chapbooks), but she and her courtiers were long dead, so there was no fear of libel charges. Moreover, there were many mysteries about her private life, and the story Reprints of Earlier English Fiction · 137

provided here helps explain why she never married (Essex marries Rutland instead), and why she so vehemently wanted his execution (she was a jealous and spurned lover). Q. Elizabeth and the E. of Essex is a titillating scandal about real people from the safety of fiction. Unlike Q. Elizabeth and the E. of Essex, which was fairly short and referred to well-known people and events, Love-Letters’ continued success is puzzling considering its length and highly topical scandal. Originally published in three separate parts, Love-Letters was over five hundred pages in the one-volume edition of 1708. The 1735 edition, in two volumes, was advertised at five shillings bound—which was not unreasonable for the length of the book, but would have been out of the price range of many readers.76 The eighth edition came out as late as 1765. Clearly, Love-Letters appealed to readers of new fiction enough that they were willing to spend a considerable amount of money on it very long after its initial publication. The main plot of the first part is Philander’s seduction of his sister-in-law Silvia and their departure together. In the second part, he hands her off to his servant Brilljard and pursues the virtuous Calista. Silvia, meanwhile, is wooed by Octavio (Calista’s brother) and agrees to marry him. In the end Octavio catches her in bed with Philander, so he becomes a monk, Calista becomes a nun, Silvia is forced out of town, and Philander is pardoned by the king. While this sounds like a typical love-intrigue plot, the premise (part 1) is based on a real scandal that occurred when Forde, Lord Grey ran away with his sister-in-law Lady Henrietta Berkeley. Grey was eventually found guilty of conspiring to kidnap Berkeley.77 Much as this scandal attracted attention at the time—several accounts, including Grey’s “confession,” were published in the 1680s—it was evidently distant enough in the past that the 1734 verse adaptation of Love-Letters identified Grey and Berkeley on the title page.78 While Grey and Berkeley’s love affair was scandalous, it was hardly dangerous. Love-Letters, however, adds another level of political intrigue to the love plot. Throughout all three parts, Philander is working for Cesario, who wants to become king. This very clearly parallels Grey’s support of the Duke of Monmouth. Cesario becomes a more important character in the third part, which details his final attempt to seize the throne and his execution. The parallels would have been especially striking to the original readers of part 3 in 1687, just two years after Monmouth’s unsuccessful rebellion. Love-Letters portrays Cesario’s fall as stemming from his love for Hermione, which is so distracting that he makes unwise political decisions. 138 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

As Philander’s companion Tomaso reports, “’Twas, my Lord, a great pity to see how his noble Resolution was changed, and how he was perfectly effeminated into soft Woman.”79 After Cesario is caught, he begs pardon from the king: “He call’d up all the Force of necessary Dissimulation, Tenderness to his Voice, Tears to his eyes, and Trembling to his Hands, that stay’d the too willing and melting Monarch by his Robe” (330). He gains a reprieve but is later condemned after he is heard to rescind his loyalty. Following his final military defeat, he is condemned to death, and he behaves so cowardly in having Hermione beg for his life that “it became a Proverb, If I have an Enemy I wish he may live like——and die like Cesario” (438). Such a portrayal of a character paralleling Monmouth would have serious political implications, as would the comment that Cesario’s problems stemmed from “Ambition and the Inspiration of Knaves and Fools” (438). Some of those “Knaves and Fools” were still alive when the third part of Love-Letters was first published, so the use of the elaborate love plot to conceal political implications makes sense. The love plot, however, was more than just a mask for a more serious message; it was what made Love-Letters appeal to later readers. The versification only includes the first part, eliminating Cesario’s role almost entirely. Eighteenth-century readers might not remember the Grey-Berkeley scandal, and the Monmouth rebellion would be old news, but the intrigues of Silvia and Philander are not bound to a particular time period. The structure of Love-Letters is also very complex: the first part is entirely in letters, chiefly between Philander and Silvia; the second part has letters mixed with third-person narration; the third part is almost entirely third-person narration, with a passage in first person and a great deal of reported speech. Philander remains a rakish womanizer throughout, but Silvia changes from an innocent maiden to a spurned lover to an unrepentant prostitute, making her a more fitting match for Philander by the end of the third part than at the beginning of the first. The complex plot, the dynamic characters, and the attention to details irrelevant to the real-life parallels set Love-Letters apart from other key novels of the late seventeenth century, such as The Secret History of the Court of the Emperor Justinian (1674) or The Secret History of the Reigns of K. Charles II and K. James II (1690). These works, interesting only for their double meanings, would make little sense after the initial context was no longer relevant. Love-Letters, however, appealed to readers looking for an interesting fictional story as well as readers of political intrigue. Reprints of Earlier English Fiction · 139

The works from the later seventeenth century that continued to be reprinted are versatile in the way that Love-Letters is: appealing to different audiences, and having a narrative that continued to be interesting after the immediate circumstances for its being written are gone. Some works, like The English Rogue, are updated for changing tastes; others, like The Pilgrim’s Progress, inspire imitators and new trends. The seventeenth-century fictions that outlasted their original publication were those that had simple, easy-tofollow plots that could be readily understood even when abridged, altered, or read in parts. The content varies wildly, but the formal structures of the narratives are contained in some specific way—either by one or two main characters, or a specific task to be accomplished.

The Formation of an English Fiction Canon From this survey of the earlier English works that continued to be reprinted in the early eighteenth century, a few general conclusions should be very apparent. First, the works that were reprinted were not necessarily the same as those that modern critics identify as most significant for the development of English fiction. Some frequently reprinted books, such as Gesta Romanorum or The History of the Five Wise Philosophers, are almost never mentioned in modern criticism of early fiction. Second, there is little connection among the works that proved to be long-lasting. Some periods, like the 1590s, saw the publication of multiple works that remained frequently reprinted; other periods, like 1610–60, produced almost no works of fiction that were reprinted later. Third, and most important of all, readers of fiction in the early eighteenth century would have encountered all these different earlier works alongside new publications, with almost no distinction made between very old, somewhat old, and relatively recent works of fiction. Readers might have had a general sense of fiction having existed in the past, but they would not have seen it as a linear, developmental progression. Despite the lack of a linear history, this was the beginning of a distinctly English canon of fiction. Many of the works that found continuous favor, like Sir Bevis of Hampton, Guy of Warwick, and Jack of Newbery, emphasize English nationalism and have their origins in English folktales. National heroes, like Saint George and Richard Whittington, become heroes of chapbooks and short fiction. The Pilgrim’s Progress emphasizes a kind of Protestant Christianity unique to England; The English Rogue rewrites the Spanish picaresque into an English setting and inspires many imitators 140 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

writing similar “rogue” tales. Even Love-Letters refers to events that happened in real life in England, not France or Spain. Many of the works of fiction that were reprinted were unique to English culture. The works that were not reprinted are also important to consider as part of how early eighteenth-century readers might have conceived of the history of fiction. Some, like the Canterbury Tales or The Faerie Queene, were well known in verse but not rewritten as prose fictions despite their obvious narrative qualities. Some of the works now considered part of the canon, like Arcadia, were reprinted but only in a few, very expensive editions; others, like The Unfortunate Traveller and The Blazing World, were evidently too topical to outlast their immediate contexts. Even if these influenced or were related to other works that were reprinted more frequently, readers in the early eighteenth century would not have seen literary history in this way. If they thought of earlier works as a distinct category at all—which they may not have, given the little information on title pages about when reprinted texts were written—they would have seen earlier English fiction as consisting of works like Bevis, Pandosto, and The English Rogue. While most of this discussion of older fictions has related to those that were reprinted in the period 1690–1730, the practice of reprinting in the remainder of the eighteenth century also demonstrates the long appeal of some of these older texts. Valentine and Orson was reprinted every five years on average throughout the eighteenth century. Dr. Faustus, The History of the Seven Wise Masters of Rome, The Seven Champions of Christendom, The Pilgrim’s Progress, The Holy War, and The Travels of True Godliness were each reprinted at least fifteen times in the hundred years after 1690. The Voyages of Sir John Mandeville and Dorastus and Fawnia were frequently reprinted up to about 1750, then less often after that. Presumably there was no longer a market for additional printings; perhaps the last edition did not sell out, or there were too many similar works of fiction. Some works were never reprinted again in the eighteenth century, including The History of the Golden Eagle and The Moral State of England. A variety of reasons could account for this, including the copyright holder deciding not to print the work again, the work being forgotten, or copies of the last edition remaining unsold. One of the strangest phenomena apparent in the history of reprinting of fiction is the long gaps between editions of the same work. The Famous History of Montelion was printed seven times between 1690 and 1720 but did not appear again until 1759; Love-Letters was printed ten times between Reprints of Earlier English Fiction · 141

1690 and 1740, then was not reprinted until 1765. The Life and Death of Mr. Badman was not reprinted in full between 1700 and 1772, then was printed again in 1774. Booksellers might have decided to revive an old work if there was increased interest in similar works, or if they rediscovered an old copy and thought it would still appeal to readers. In some cases these gaps might reflect problems in the ESTC rather than actual publication history: undated copies are often given approximate or incorrect dates in bibliographies, and some editions in between those listed might have since been lost. Whatever the reason, the existence of such gaps and revivals of old fiction demonstrate that older works were very much a part of the inventory sold in bookshops alongside new works, and that readers in the eighteenth century would have frequently encountered older fiction. If a printer or bookseller could rediscover an older work to reprint it, a reader could also find older works that had not been reprinted. We have little specific information about the used book market, but presumably there were many individual copies of older books that had not been reprinted. The key point here about reprinted and older fiction is that readers in the early eighteenth century would not have had a chronological, sequential sense of earlier English fiction. They would have known that there was fiction in the past, but it was mostly short, often religious, and frequently told stories like Reynard or Thomas of Reading that had reached the status of myth. While there was a shift away from picaresque and toward more versatile and complex works in the 1680s, the older works were still reprinted and read for a very long time to come.

142 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

5 Foreign Fiction in English Translation

s Few twenty-first-century readers are familiar with Fénelon’s Telemachus, but in eighteenth-century England, it was one of the most reprinted works of fiction in English, behind only Pilgrim’s Progress, Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels, and Don Quixote. While the influence of foreign fiction in its original language has been studied by Williams, McKeon, and Ray, the degree to which foreign works were available in translation alongside English fiction has largely been overlooked. In fact, more than a quarter of the works of fiction printed in England in the period 1690–1730 were translated from other languages— mostly French, but also Spanish and occasionally Italian or German. Many works appeared once and never again, but a few were issued repeatedly for a century or more after their original publication. As the next chapter will demonstrate, new English fiction borrowed many motifs and themes from successful translated works, so a survey of the types of foreign fiction available is necessary here. There were advantages for publishers in publishing translations, and the works successful in English often reflected the real-life political and religious conflicts between England and the Continent. Foreign fiction is a much more important part of the market than many scholars have recognized, and it was significant both for shaping the representation of Spain and France and for responding to the demands and interests of readers.

The Practice of Translating Fiction The practice of translation in the early eighteenth century is difficult to describe because it was so variously conducted. Some publishers regularly 143

commissioned translations; others did the occasional foreign piece, but mostly printed original English works. David Hopkins and Pat Rogers caution against trusting derogatory depictions of hack translators by Pope and Fielding, yet certainly some translation work was carried out by low-paid, anonymous scribblers.1 I differ here from Mary Helen McMurran’s analysis of the translation of fiction, in which she argues that “translators worked at their leisure and independently, absorbing much of the financial risk of a publication.”2 Some translators, especially those who did classical or poetic translations, may have been able to demand high fees and rely on the incomes from their translations; most translators, we must assume, could not. A surprising number of fiction writers, including Behn, Haywood, Aubin, and Brown, also translated foreign works, often other works of fiction but also poetry and essays. The theory behind the translation varied wildly: some works are very close to a literal translation, others are adapted with English colloquialisms, and others are so completely altered as to be imitations rather than translations. While a comprehensive study of the practice of translation would occupy a book of its own, I shall here describe the aspects of the trade that pertain to fiction in the early eighteenth century. Many of the publishers of fiction did both translations and new works. Tonson is one of the few who published more translations than new works of fiction, including English versions of the famous French works Le Diable Boiteux [The Devil on Two Sticks] (1708), The Thousand and One Days (1714–15), and The History of Gil Blas (1716). Francis Saunders likewise appears in the imprints of more translations than original English works, including some that were reprinted many times thereafter, such as Memoirs of the Court of Spain (1692) and Fortune in Her Wits (1697). Most publishers only published the occasional fiction translation, as is the case with John Roberts. His one fiction translation is done by Haywood, whose original work also came out under his imprint. From a publisher’s point of view, translations could be a somewhat better investment than an original English work: the publisher had only to negotiate with the translator for the copyright, and if a work was popular in another language, there was some indication that it might succeed in English. We do not have exact figures for rates of pay to translators of fiction, but most were likely paid very little, even less than writers of original works. Publishers of fiction in translation do not seem to be focusing purposely on foreign works; translations were simply part of a publisher’s broad list. However, there is some indication that they viewed translation as separate 144 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

from original English works; the advertisement in the back of the collected works of Aulnoy (1707) lists five works of fiction for sale, all of which are large, expensive translations: The Whole Comical Works of Scarron, A Hundred Ingenious Novels by Boccaccio, The Life of Guzman D’Alfarache, The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes, and Arabian Nights Entertainments. These are evidently advertised together here because the publisher thought that readers of Aulnoy might find them to be similar. If a particular translation sold well, the same publisher sometimes did another work by the same author to capitalize on the success of the first. Richard Sare, for example, appears on the imprint of both Quevedo’s hit Visions (1696) and the less successful Fortune in Her Wits (1697), indicating that he was trying to capitalize on the success of Visions. Samuel Crouch, however, did not publish other Aulnoy works following the popularity of The Lady———’s Travels into Spain (1691). Even the more marketable foreign authors, like Aulnoy, appeared under the imprints of different booksellers. While publishers did not focus on particular foreign authors or even on translations versus English fiction, they did often reuse the same translators. This makes sense: a publisher might develop a relationship with a particular translator and hire him or her to do other translations if the first sold well. Aubin, for example, translated three works from French for almost the same conglomerate of ten publishers. A few translators, including Aubin, Haywood, L’Estrange, John Ozell, Ambrose Philips, and John Stevens, achieved enough fame that they were named on the title pages of works they translated. This did not necessarily mean that they were well off: Stevens died with a net worth of less than £20 despite being listed prominently on the title pages of many works leading right up to the year of his death.3 We have no way of knowing how effective translator names were for selling books, but booksellers evidently thought that they could attract readers to buy books, as much as an author’s name might. One reason that readers might be drawn to translators as they might be to an author is that translations in the early eighteenth century were often very free, and they showed the style of the translator as much as the original author. This is especially true for translators who were fiction writers themselves. Haywood, for example, translated works similar in content and style to her own original writing—La Belle Assemblée (1724), The Disguis’d Prince (1728), and Love in its Variety (1727) are all amorous tales of love and intrigue, like Haywood’s own Love in Excess (1719). The same is true with Aubin’s translations of The Adventures of the Prince of Clermont (1722) Foreign Fiction in English Translation · 145

and The Life of the Countess de Gondez (1729) in comparison with her own work. This is not always the case, however: Thomas Brown’s translation of Aulnoy’s Memoirs of the Court of Spain (1692), for example, has a much more straightforward and less comical style than his satiric and often biting Letters from the Dead to the Living (1702). The Aulnoy work does point out the corruption of the court, but in style, format, and narrative technique it is nothing like Brown’s own fiction. Such variation in technique and practice of translation can be partly accounted for by the lack of a standard concept of how a translated text should relate to the original. Most of the comments about translation theory that pertain to fiction come from the prefaces to translated works. Walter Pope, the translator of Cervantes’s Novelas Exemplares (1694), for example, explains that “I have made all of them shorter, if not better, and Brevity is always good.”4 Translators do generally make good on prefatory claims, but they do not comment on specific aspects of translation practice. Commonly the only information about their approach to translation is found in broad statements about replicating the “style of the original” or “improving” on earlier translations of the text. The use of intermediary translations further complicates any attempt to disentangle theory from practice. By intermediary, I mean a translation of a translation: an English translator making an English version of, say, a Spanish text using the French version. Hopkins and Rogers point out that this was frequently done (82). There was little stigma against this: the translation of Olivaires of Castile (1695) by Mark Micklethwait, for example, states on the title page that it is “Translated out of the Spanish into the Italian Tongue, by Francesco Portonari: And from the Italian made English.” The preface (signed by Portonari) further complicates the transmission history by claiming that the tales were discovered and rewritten into Latin by “two Writers, searching into Ancient Histories,” then translated into French by their friend, who brought it to Spain where it was translated into Spanish (sig. A2r–A2v). If this is to be believed, the text passed through three languages (Latin, French, and Spanish) between the original “Ancient Histories” and the Italian version (which Micklethwait then used for the English translation). Portonari then makes the very interesting claim that he examined all the previous versions and has “deduced, and compiled, and so methodiz’d this Work, that it appears to me (without flattering my self, or it) to equal, if not excel all the other,” and that it “has more of the Truth, according to the Relation of the History, and less of the Additional Lyes 146 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

and Fictions that Transcribers have mix’d therewith” (sig. A3r–A3v). The process Portonari claims to have used, therefore, was to examine all the previous translations in order to get back to the absent original “Truth”— ignoring the fact that according to his explanation the translations depend on each other. This highlights the acceptance of intermediary translations, the belief that “truth” lurked behind fiction, and that it was both desirable and reachable. Not all translators considered reliance on intermediary translations a legitimate practice, however. John Stevens argues in the preface to his translation of Don Quixote that “all I have done either in Correcting or Translating, has been from the Spanish Original, and not from the French, which being but a Translation it self can not be so good a ground for another version, because it is certain there is no Copy but will somewhat vary from the Original, and therefore Copying from a Copy must of necessity still make the ofspring of the Brain the more unlike its first Parent.”5 Some translators were more concerned than others with representing the original text accurately—but readers were not necessarily as interested. Stevens’s translation was not reprinted as many times as other contemporary translations. There appear to be different standards for translating long-standing, semicanonical works like Don Quixote and the majority of contemporary fiction from France or Spain. For the former, translators strive for correctness and a proper representation of the original writer’s voice, almost as much as in translations of classical works; for the latter, the aim of the translation is simply to make a good story in English. While translation was practiced in a variety of ways, from the use of cheap hacks to the careful efforts at recapturing the “style” of an original author, my point here is that translation was always done with an eye toward making the final product marketable. Those translators who were chiefly concerned with making a good story in English appealed to a different type of reader than those who emphasized the connection with the original. Some publishers were apparently unwilling or unable to capitalize on their successes by issuing more books by the same author or from the same translator, but many did, and they clearly saw translation as an important part of their business. The translation of fiction enabled booksellers to include even large works of fiction in their lists with relatively less risk than they would undertake in publishing an unknown, new work. Certainly, not all translations were successful—as with new English fiction, many translations only had one edition and were evidently not popular enough to warrant a Foreign Fiction in English Translation · 147

second—but those that found favor with an English audience sold many copies, in some cases appearing in new editions every few years throughout the eighteenth century.

Amorous Plots Most of the fiction translated into English in the early eighteenth century was originally written in French or Spanish. Both France and Spain were Catholic and at war with England during much of this period—namely, during the War of the Grand Alliance, which pitted France against most of Europe (1688–97), and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14). England, reeling from the Glorious Revolution, was very afraid of Catholic influences imported from the Continent. How could Catholic fiction from countries at war with England appeal to English readers? The answer, I shall argue here, is that for French and Spanish fictions to be successful in English, they had to strike a delicate balance between representing the Catholic nations accurately enough to seem plausible, and making the focal point of the book something other than religion. Many works did this by presenting an amorous love plot in a French or Spanish setting. While the combination of love-intrigue plots and staunch Catholic ritual might seem incongruous, one key point of interest in these works is the conflict between passionate love and traditional Catholic mores. Amorous tales make light of government and church corruption and use humor to point out contradictions between doctrine and practice. Such works also emphasize that the French and Spanish did not all follow the strict regulations they set for themselves—and the versions of France and Spain presented in the tales have relatively few consequences for breaking rules. A number of works that have plots oriented around one or more pairs of lovers employ conventions similar to their seventeenth-century English counterparts. Zingis (1692), for example, is set in Tartary at some point in the past and details the lovers’ background leading up to a dramatic conclusion involving the hero Zingis’s escape from a scaffold on the point of execution. Zingis ends with a triple wedding and a coronation, endorsing the rights of nobility and the triumph of true love over false ambition (175–76). Such works are similar to Sidney’s Arcadia in their plot, setting, and values. The virtues and morals promoted are very similar to those in the chivalric texts that so warp Don Quixote’s imagination, but they were evidently still popular alongside humorous works that mock them. 148 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

Sometimes the conventions and ethics of high romance conflict with the world of peasants that populates humorous love fictions. Francisco de Quintana’s History of Hippolyto and Aminta (1718) is a good example of how these two traditions can clash when brought together. The two noble lovers quarrel with characters who do not share their values, as when Hippolyto steals a horse from some cowherds to take Aminta to town, reasoning that “All Goods being common in Cases of Extremity; He thought it no Offence to take that Horse upon such an urgent Necessity, to carry the Lady to the next Town” (15–16). Unfortunately, the cowherds feel otherwise, and they ambush the lovers to regain the horse and arrest Hippolyto (19). Hippolyto and Aminta are shocked at such treatment and consider it indicative of the boorish behavior of the peasantry: they never question their right to take a horse that is not theirs. Female chastity is valued above almost all other virtues, sometimes to excessive lengths. This is shown when Aminta decides to become a nun after discovering that Hippolyto is her first cousin. She explains that “My Love to Hippolyto was always chaste, and I doubt not but that his to me was the same” (305). Her choice meets with universal acclaim: Hippolyto “highly applauded so religious a Design” and “Aminta’s Father and Brother were transported with Joy, and all the Company applauded and congratulated her” (305–6). Whereas in English works the alternative of a monastery is often presented as a punishment or a place for fallen women, in high romance Spanish texts like Hippolyto and Aminta it is a choice more laudable even than marriage. One example of a complex handling of Catholicism as simultaneously an element of the setting, part of a holistic Christianity, and an extreme branch of Christianity is found in the History of Olivaires (1695).6 The general plot of this work is fairly straightforward: Olivaires has to flee Castile when he finds that his stepmother has fallen in love with him, so he goes to England where he wins a tournament and the hand of Helena, an English princess. Many years later, he is captured by an Irish king, so his stepbrother Arthur comes to rescue him and marries Olivaires’s daughter. Dating from pre-golden-age Spain and originally derived from a French tale, the story is set no more than a generation after Charlemagne’s death in the early ninth century (2). The style of the whole is highly archaic, describing a medieval world of tournaments and knights: Miguel Ángel Frontón notes that Olivaires was one of several chivalric works that experienced a surge in popularity in late seventeenth-century Spain.7 The earlier composition of the work and the medieval setting further complicates the presentation of Foreign Fiction in English Translation · 149

Catholicism in England, since the story is both written and set before the Reformation. This is reflected in the 1695 translation, so readers in the late seventeenth century would know that this was a historical work. The first mention of religion in Olivaires shows Christianity as the common belief by which the main character knows that he can trust a stranger. He meets a knight dressed in black, and “signing himself with the Cross, after the manner of the Christians,” he asks the knight’s name. The knight replies, “I am a Christian, and believe in God as thy self ” (76). The knight’s answer emphasizes the belief in the Christian god as the common denominator that identifies them as Christian, not the religious practices such as making the sign of the cross that Olivaires uses. Other references are more specific to Catholic ritual. For example, when Olivaires stays with a hermit who gives him armor and horses for the tournament, “the Sacred Hermit celebrated the Holy Mass; and Olivaires having confess’d his Sins to the Reverend Father, received the Eucharist with mighty devotion and contrition for his Faults” (81). While other branches of Christianity do take communion, the references to mass and confession signal Catholicism in particular. A more intense version of Catholic religious zeal is shown by Olivaires’s son Henry, who becomes a crusader. He is introduced as a “Pillar of the Christian Religion,” and he eventually becomes general of an army to assist the king of Cyprus “against the Enemies of the Catholick Faith” (171, 242). The conclusion to Olivaires begins by saying that “Henry conquered many and many Countries, and at last died Fighting for Holy Mother Church” (252). The description of the Cyprus king asking for help in battle is very similar to the start of the First Crusade in the eleventh century, but Henry seems loosely based on Richard the Lion-Heart from the twelfth century, both at least two hundred years after the time of Charlemagne when the story purportedly takes place. This makes sense considering that the narrator does not intend historical accuracy: “my purpose is to make a Relation of uncommon and marvellous Exploits; to the end that by hearing such honourable Feats done of others, brave Souls may the eagerlier be incited to an impetuous thirst after the acquist of Glory” (1–2). In this aim the narrator seems to have succeeded. Even in this English translation, Henry is presented as a hero for fighting to spread Christianity in general, despite the fact that the branch of Christianity he is promoting is in serious disfavor in England. While we have no way of knowing how English readers reacted to these 150 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

specific works, there continued to be considerable antipathy toward Catholics in England in the late seventeenth century. The translation of Olivaires appeared just seven years after the Catholic James II was forced to abdicate the throne. One appeal of works of this type is the way they encouraged anti-Catholic feeling by presenting a corrupt church and society. A number of the French fictions about Spain similarly portray Spanish Catholicism as being hypocritical because it is more severe than that found in other countries. The History Political and Gallant of the Famous Cardinal Portocarrero (1704), for example, was “translated from the French” but about Spain. The portrayal of Portocarrero as a lascivious hypocrite who rapes a nun reflects a dire view toward the sanctity of the Catholic Church’s institutions. One of the most frequently reprinted French fictions from the late seventeenth century, the Vicomte de Guilleragues’s Five Love-Letters from a Nun to a Cavalier (1678), deals with the problem of translating a Catholic context by showing characters actively trying to resist it.8 The five letters are from an unnamed nun to a lover who has jilted her, and they track her emotional distress through phases of despair, hope, anger, and resignation. They are remarkable for what a modern critic might call psychological realism: Day comments that in the late seventeenth century “their authenticity was generally credited, and they were almost universally regarded as containing the accents of genuine and heartrending passion” (33). Although the nun remains in the convent, her decision to stay is not from a change of heart: she regrets her affair only because the cavalier left her. She confesses that “If I could but find any way to deliver my self from this unlucky Cloyster,” she would join him, and that “My Honour, and Religion are brought only to serve the Turn of my Love” (10, 26). Five Love-Letters portrays a nun who has been so thoroughly seduced by a lover that she would rather have him than any religious reward or holy life. Yet this is neither presented as irrational desperation nor as an isolated case. Even while complaining about the cavalier’s behavior, she comments that “a man should rather fix upon a Mistress in a Convent than any where else. For they have nothing there to hinder them from being perpetually Intent upon their passion” (96). Readers do not need to be Catholic to sympathize with the jilted nun; in fact, a Catholic reader might judge the nun’s actions more severely and be less sympathetic toward her plight. Five Love-Letters portrays the convent as a hopeless place, a prison where the nun can bury herself after losing her chance at worldly love. Five Love-Letters enjoyed considerable success in English translation, Foreign Fiction in English Translation · 151

reprinted eight times between 1678 and 1730. Yet neither of its two sequels, Seven Portuguese Letters (1681) and Five Love-letters Written by a Cavalier (1683), did nearly as well: the former was printed only twice, and the latter went into just four editions. Portuguese Letters takes place before the events of Five Love-Letters, beginning at the height of their affair and detailing the nun’s increasing jealousy and suspicion. It has almost no reference to the convent or the religious life of the nun, however: she has other admirers besides the cavalier, and is in the world enough that she sees him dance with another woman (16, 36). Portuguese Letters, therefore, loses the clandestine nature of Five Love-Letters. A story about a cavalier possibly jilting a lady is not nearly as scandalous and unusual as a cavalier jilting a nun who devoted herself to him. The Five Love-Letters Written by a Cavalier provide point-by-point replies to the original letters, but attempt to make the cavalier sympathetic by keeping him faithful to the nun. This results in rather tepid responses to her passion. For example, the nun writes, “They have lately made me doorkeeper here in this Convent. All the People that talk to me think me mad; for I answer them I know not what; And certainly the rest of the Convent must be as mad as I, they would never else have thought me Capable of any Trust” (23–24). To this poignant expression of how passion consumes her thoughts, the cavalier responds merely, “I am extreamly joyed to know that you are become Porter of your Convent: ’Tis a most certain means of bringing our Intentions to good effect” (23). He denies seducing her and claims unconvincingly that “The Transports of my Passion are at least equal with those of yours” (25). Neither of the sequels to Five Love-Letters manages to capture the combination of forbidden love and emotional pathos found in the original work. Aulnoy’s Letters from the Lady———’s Travels into Spain (1691) and the autobiographical narrative included in her collected works have a setting and concept similar to those of the Five Love-Letters, and perhaps appealed to English readers for comparable reasons. The Travels into Spain went into twelve separate editions between 1691 and 1740, and were evidently wellknown enough that other works by Aulnoy state they are by the “Author of the Ladies Travels to Spain.” Paul Courteault notes that Aulnoy did actually visit Spain, and Amy Elizabeth Smith argues that the Travels into Spain are part of a “familiar letters” tradition characterized by “authentic letters written for a private audience.”9 However, many of the anecdotes Aulnoy relates are highly sensationalized: the narrator meets a hermit, for example, 152 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

who explains that he became a hermit after killing his beloved wife in a fit of misplaced jealousy (66–68). The presentation of the Spanish Catholics is not altogether without judgment: for example, Aulnoy repeats a story from a valet that “the Fryers had kept him in custody, to get Money of him” (112). Most strikingly, she hears a description of a Spanish convent where “their Apartments are very fine, and every whit as well furnisht as if they were at large in the World. . . . There are Convents where the Religious see more Cavaliers than the Women who live at large” (130–31). The depiction of Spain, and of religious people in particular, dramatically reveals a scandalous underworld behind the façade of severity and self-denial. The interest in the secret love lives of nuns and friars coincides with the pseudo-autobiographical memoirs of Aulnoy printed in her collected works in 1707. The narrator describes being sent to a convent as a young girl, from which she concludes “that Convents, where young People are allow’d the liberty I had, are no better Schools for Children than the Houses of fondling Parents that idolize their own Issue.”10 She “copied out of several Romances” some expressions of love, which she sends to a man to persuade him to visit her (5). While she admits that her personality was especially unsuited for the life of a nun, she also comments that other nuns made her “the Confident of their secret disgusts against Retirement” (11). The convent is portrayed as a place where an outward show of piety and sanctity conceals inner worldliness and lust. Those nuns who are living a holy life there are unhappy at their confinement. This convent is not an anomaly: even when the narrator eventually moves to a holier convent, she finds that the nuns are so proud of their reputation for sanctity “that they would not so much as converse with a Lay-Sister” and “They desir’d . . . never to hear any but the most famous Preachers” (12). No matter how holy they may seem, they still take pleasure in worldly values like reputation, fame, and class. Like Five Love-Letters from a Nun, Aulnoy’s depiction of a convent is designed to expose hypocrisy in Catholic institutions. Aulnoy’s narrator is much more triumphant and witty than the regretful and pathetic nun from Five Love-Letters, but both show convents as being far less sacred and strict than they claim to be. The wide appeal of the texts discussed above becomes much clearer when contrasted with the idiosyncrasy of some works that were not reprinted more than perhaps one time. There are over a dozen works of French fiction about the court or particular courtiers, a number of which focus on the intrigues and love affairs of women at the court of Louis XIV.11 Many Foreign Fiction in English Translation · 153

of these are pretty dull reading if one does not care about the scandal they purport to reveal; one of these, Scarron Incens’d (1694), provides a sufficient example of the broader type. This work is anonymous, and definitely not by the writer Scarron, who died in 1660. The presentation of his ghost is highly unflattering, so the author of this fiction may be trying to criticize Scarron’s attitudes and outlook. The preface describes the French court as “always abounding in Amorous Intrigues,” and the main plot centers around Madame de Maintenon, Louis’s longtime mistress (sig. A3v). Maintenon had been married to Scarron before his death, and in Scarron Incens’d his ghost appears to her “to admonish yee to alter your extravagant course of Life, and to repent betimes, in order to your avoiding Eternal Punishment” (24). Maintenon makes a pilgrimage to a holy site, but does not change her ways, and ends up wracked with jealousy over Louis’s attention to other women at court—including Mary of Modena, the wife of the former king James II of England (79–81). While the main characters are, of course, based on real people, there are few verifiable facts about actual events. Maintenon’s nephew, mentioned at the end of the narrative, might have been familiar to English readers of news books: the Present State of Europe reported in 1691 that a position given to him is “a certain Proof of that Lady’s continuing still in Favour.”12 The few references to the War of the Grand Alliance are negative: Scarron’s ghost comments that “This War . . . which the King maintains with so much heat, appears very unjust before our Judges of the Lower World,” and he blames Louis for “having broke the Truce which he made with the Dutch for Twenty Years, banish’d all the Hugonots out of his Kingdom, revok’d the Edict of France, and acted a thousand other things contrary to the Peace of a State” (35–36). Elsewhere, however, Maintenon refers to Louis’s exile of the Huguenots as “a most noble Action of late Days, in Extirpating the Hereticks out of your Kingdom” (94). Considering that Scarron is dead and Maintenon is mistress to the king, her views seem to be rewarded in Scarron Incens’d. With such favorable views of Catholics, pro-French attitudes toward international politics, and a flattering portrayal of the exiled James II and his wife, Scarron Incens’d seems calculated to irritate rather than appeal to English sensibilities. The French fiction that focuses on religion and politics, therefore, only seems to succeed in English translation if it portrays Catholicism in a skeptical or hostile light and avoids a pro-French political stance. Aulnoy and Guilleragues also employ narrators with interesting and unique voices to 154 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

expose the hypocrisy of the other characters, criticizing the strictness of a (Catholic) religious lifestyle by showing how it clashes with human nature. While there may be many other reasons why certain works were reprinted and others were not, there are definitely some elements of narrative perspective and attitude toward Catholicism common to the religious and political French works that were successful in English translation. Almost universally, French and Spanish amorous fiction that was reprinted in English combined a love plot with anti- Catholic sentiments of varying degrees. By doing this, they avoid the triviality of plots that are solely amorous and the potential for alienating the Protestant reader with a heavy Catholic focus.

Comedy and Satire Just as the amorous plots balanced love with religion and politics, comic fiction from France and Spain combined buffoonery and roguery with satire and social commentary. How well did this work in practice? The most successful work of this type is, of course, Don Quixote, which will be discussed at greater length below. Quixote is an exception because of its widespread appeal, its criticism of literature as well as society, and its frequent adaptation into various forms for different types of readers. But a number of other comic and satirical works were also reprinted frequently in their original format. While noble works like Hippolyto and Aminta remained popular enough to be reprinted in the eighteenth century, there was a countertradition of comic works that focused on “low-life” versions of the amorous plot, often with tricksters or adventurers. One important example is The Life of Donna Rosina (c. 1700), a translation of a work by Solórzano.13 Donna Rosina is a picaresque work, and the address to the reader claims that it is meant to imitate the famous Spanish fiction Guzmán de Alfarache.14 Unlike most other picaresque works, however, the pícaro (rogue) is female—and so Rosina inverts the usual convention in Spanish amorous fictions of chaste women resisting the advances of conniving men. Costing one shilling, Donna Rosina proved successful enough with an English audience to reach a thirteenth edition by 1793.15 Rosina marries young and soon becomes a widow, then uses her beauty to attract men and steal their money, with the help of her accomplice Garay. Most of her victims deserve the treatment she gives them: when news spreads of her robbing the wealthy merchant Marquina, “some who knew not his humour, pitied his misfortune, but such as were Foreign Fiction in English Translation · 155

acquainted with his insatiable Avarice, were not a little pleased to see him so justly punished” (74). Finally, she too meets with her just deserts when one of her victims turns her in to the authorities and she is summarily executed (157). Donna Rosina can be read as a straightforward tale driven mainly by greed and punishment. Complicating this simple portrayal of poetic justice, however, is the implied satire on human behavior under the strict Spanish traditions. Many of the characters maintain innocent façades that show them acting as is expected for someone of their quality. Rosina pretends to be a chaste widow; Octavio, one of her victims, seems to be a learned scientist; and Crispen, the victim who ultimately defeats Rosina, is a hermit known for his sanctity. Beyond their public behavior, however, they are very corrupt. Rosina is sexually promiscuous, Octavio only studies alchemy, and Crispen works with local thieves to amass money and valuables in his hut. One of the thieves comments that “his Religious Cowl covers a great deal of villainy, and he is so insinuating in his behaviour, that he is very much in their favour who bestowed the Hermitage upon him” (105). The narrator exposes Crispen as lustful as well as greedy: “notwithstanding he was a Fryar, and had made a Vow of Chastity, yet he had a great Passion for the whole Sex” (108). Crispen uses a devout persona to conceal criminal behavior. Donna Rosina implies that many people in real life are not as good at heart as they appear to the casual observer—and that the severe control associated with Spanish customs masked widespread iniquity. Other Spanish works exhibit dark satire or social critique similar to that of Donna Rosina, but without the lighthearted love plot. The works of Quevedo are perhaps most famous, and they employ biting satire to critique people of all professions and social classes. Salzman writes that “Alemán and Quevedo depict the breach between reflection and action, morality and pragmatism, as a product of the harsh world in which the picaro must survive” (209). This dichotomy is very apparent in Fortune in Her Wits, where the Roman god Jove declares that for one hour “every Man be put into those Circumstances he justly deserves.”16 This is followed by such role reversals as a physician turned into a hangman and clients accusing lawyers of protracting lawsuits and speaking gibberish (9, 33). In Visions, Quevedo uses a first-person narrator to relate seven visions of hell in the manner of Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead, exposing pretense and falsehood in people of different professions.17 He emphasizes the range of people affected: “Hypocrisie is so Epidemical a Disease, that it has laid hold of the Trade them156 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

selves, as well as the Masters. . . . The Hangman calls himself a Minister of Justice; the Mountebank, an Able man; A common Whore passes for a Courtisan; The Bawd acts the Puritan; Gaming Ordinaries are call’d Academies; and Bawdy-Houses, places of Entertainment” (143). The accusations of deception and corruption are similar to the implied criticisms in Donna Rosina, but in Quevedo’s works the story has become subsumed into the satire. Neither Fortune in Her Wits nor Visions has much plot, only simple premises to allow for descriptions of hypocritical behavior among different people. Both were reprinted in English throughout the eighteenth century. The French comic fictions, by contrast, are distinctly unserious and, in some ways, un-French—whereas the Spanish works are always set in Spain and criticize uniquely Spanish social and religious structures. The three most successful French comic works, in fact, are all set in Spain, and relate more to the style and content of Cervantes’s works than Aulnoy’s or La Croix’s. Scarron’s fiction, like Cervantes’s shorter works, employs amorous plots but pokes fun at overly protective parents or lovers trying to cheat human nature in their choice of partner. Alain René Le Sage’s The History and Adventures of Gil Blas (1716) stars a roguish main character similar to Guzmán or The English Rogue’s Meriton Latroon, but rather than describing his own crimes, he observes other criminals, tricksters, and cheats. Le Sage’s Le Diable Boiteux (1708) also describes people from different walks of life, but adds moral and philosophical reflection similar to that found in Quevedo’s Visions. Scarron’s fiction provides an interesting example of a new translation replacing an earlier one, helping the work stay relevant even as fiction tastes changed. John Davies’s translation of four works collected as Scarron’s Novels were published in a single octavo volume in 1665, and was reissued that same year with an additional three works of fiction. It was reprinted in full at least four times in the seventeenth century, and individual works were printed separately. In 1700, however, a new translation by Thomas Brown, John Savage, “and others” of The Whole Comical Works of Monsr. Scarron was published. A note from “the booksellers” explains that in addition to Davies’s translation relying on poor copy-texts, a new version was needed because Scarron’s fiction “was part in a Folio Volume, and partly an Octavo, and so could not be bound together.” Indeed, the pagination starts over three times, indicating that The Whole Comical Works could be sold in parts as well as a single volume—which might account for its reprinting, if people who could not afford the whole were buying sections instead. The Foreign Fiction in English Translation · 157

booksellers also explain that they omitted City Romance because “it was none of his, but only Father’d upon him to make it sell.”18 Despite being six hundred pages, The Whole Comical Works was reprinted six times in the eighteenth century, and Davies’s translation of Scarron’s Novels was only reprinted once. For many eighteenth-century readers, then, this later translation is what they would have encountered. The shorter works of fiction found in both Scarron’s Novels and The Whole Comical Works are set in Spain and have morally justified endings. “Avarice Chastis’d,” for example, concludes with a dramatic scene of a miser hitting a sailor who had caused his money to fall overboard, and then being hit himself and falling into the sea, taking his hapless mistress with him. Sometimes the narrator adds an explicit moral lesson as with “The Useless Precaution,” in which a man marries a foolish woman in order to find someone he thinks incapable of deceiving him. After she manages to cheat him anyway and he dies, she enters a convent, and the narrator explains “that vertue cannot be perfect without good sense, that a Witty Woman may be honest of herself, but that a Fool cannot be so without assistance, and good looking after” (55). None of these stories are particularly surprising or unusual. They mostly focus on a person (or persons, as with “The Rival Brothers”) with a single major flaw that leads to his or her downfall, generally because of a love affair. In these qualities, they are very much like other French works translated in the late seventeenth century, such as The Character of Love (1686), Saint-Évremond’s Female Falshood (1697), or Brémond’s The Viceroy of Catalonia (1678). Different types of comic fiction were marketed to the same audience. The Whole Comical Works includes the Comical Romance, which is a different variety of “comic” fiction from the moralistic amorous tales. Its meandering plot follows a troupe of actors as they meet various people and try to make money (by acting or less legitimate means). The narrative style is a highly elaborate and exaggerated version of that found in the “high” romance works of Sidney and Scudéry: the first chapter, for example, begins, “Bright Phoebus had already perform’d above half his Career; and his Chariot having past the Meridian, and got on the Declivity of the Sky, roll’d on swifter than he desir’d” (1). For readers familiar with Arcadia and the like, such writing used to describe itinerant actors and beggars would be funny because of the contrast between style and subject matter; but for readers approaching Scarron without that background, the narrative technique

158 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

might be simply tedious. In combination with an opinionated first-person narrator and frequent direct addresses to the reader, the style comes across as tongue-in-cheek. A good example of this appears at the beginning of chapter 5, where the narrator comments that “The Stroller Rancour, one of the principal Heroes of our Romance, for one alone will not serve our turn; and since there’s nothing more perfect than the Hero of a Book, half a dozen Heroes, or would be such, will do more credit to mine than a single one” (9). Here the narrator starts to say something about Rancour, but he digresses to explain Rancour’s position in the plot (“one of the principal Heroes”), refers obliquely to the reader (“our Romance”), implicitly criticizes other works of fiction (“nothing’s more perfect than the Hero of a Book”), and parodies logical reasoning by making a nonsensical argument. Much like Don Quixote, the Comical Romance is very clever and satirical for readers familiar with the tradition it is caricaturing, but many must have taken it at face value as a comical work about silly people. As with Don Quixote, readers evidently found the Comical Romance entertaining enough to keep reading it even if they were not familiar with the longer romances it parodies: the six subsequent editions of The Whole Comical Works demonstrate an ongoing interest that far supersedes the limited appeal of Arcadia and other serious works of this type. Like Scarron’s Comical Romance, Le Sage’s The History and Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane has a digressive plot and is comic in both the actions of the characters and its parody of more serious “histories” of fictional people. From humble origins, the title character wanders through the world, meeting a wide variety of people and eventually gaining the favor of the king. Gil Blas is one of the few works of fiction from the early eighteenth century we can say with certainty was read by at least two later English fiction writers and apparently influenced them. In speaking of supposedly true histories making factual errors, Fielding comments in Joseph Andrews that “the most known Instance of this kind is in the true History of Gil-Blas.”19 Smollett translated Gil Blas in the late 1740s and critiqued its humor in the preface to his own novel Roderick Random: The disgraces of Gil Blas, are for the most part, such as rather excite mirth than compassion; he himself laughs at them; and his transitions from distress to happiness, or at least ease, are so sudden, that neither the reader has time to pity him, nor himself to be acquainted with

Foreign Fiction in English Translation · 159

affliction.—This conduct, in my opinion, not only deviates from probability, but prevents that generous indignation, which ought to animate the reader, against the sordid and vicious disposition of the world.20

Importantly, Smollett finds the type of humor in Gil Blas too lighthearted either to be a plausible representation of real life or to convey serious moral sentiment. He clearly expects readers to know Gil Blas and understand the contrast he is drawing between it and Roderick Random. Smollett was not the only writer to criticize Le Sage’s narrative techniques in Gil Blas: an anonymous critic in 1751 complains that Le Sage “tells us Gil Blas is going to such or such a Place, but does not discover the least of his Adventures there; but he is more particularly cautious when any unexpected Event is to happen,” so that ultimately “We are too well assured of Gil Blas’s Prosperity a long Time beforehand, to be surpriz’d at it.”21 There is only short-term suspense in Gil Blas; the happy ending is easily predictable. Other references to Gil Blas in the 1750s indicate that it was presumed to be well known to many readers.22 Le Diable Boiteux, like Gil Blas, was printed repeatedly in English through the whole eighteenth century. It is one of the very few works of fiction in translation to be reprinted regularly with its French title, though generally the phrase “Or, The Devil upon Two Sticks” was added to the title page. The latter phrase is used for several other works, including as part of the title of a 1704 play unrelated to Le Sage’s work of fiction, and the title of Samuel Foote’s satirical play in the later eighteenth century.23 The humorous, crippled devil on crutches became something of a stock character, similar to Quixote. A 1770 translation comments in its preface that the devil “is beloved by every one” and that “He is read, he is caressed; never was devil so fondled.”24 The devil’s character is one of the main appeals of Le Diable Boiteux and helps to make up for the looseness of the plot. Unlike the amorous fictions, which often have very complex plots, comic fictions like Le Diable Boiteux, Gil Blas, and Visions do not have very clearly defined narrative structures. Le Diable Boiteux employs a frame narrative that provides a reason for telling short vignettes and more complex stories, occasionally relating the vignettes to the characters in the frame. The first chapter is titled “Necessary to be read in order to the Understanding the rest,” pointing out the structure of the narrative. The main plot follows the devil, Asmodeo, who shows the young man Cleofas the insides of houses

160 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

and the different types of human behavior. The first of the longer stories Asmodeo tells Cleofas is about a girl whose duenna helps a man seduce her. It is more than sixty pages and very detailed, ending with a double wedding between two sets of siblings (31–94). Cleofas interrupts the story in the middle to ask Asmodeo about some women tending a sick man that he sees in a nearby house. Such interruptions remind the reader of the frame story and keep the stories within the frame from taking over the narrative. Two interactions between the frame narrative and the vignettes that Asmodeo tells Cleofas demonstrate how Le Sage breaks down the division between frame and story. The first of these is when Asmodeo helps Cleofas take revenge on his mistress, Donna Thomasa, for hiring men to attack him. Asmodeo shows Cleofas the inside of Thomasa’s house, where she is dining with the four ruffians, and Cleofas “trembled with outrageous Resentment to see them eat a Turky, and empty several Bottles of Wine, for which he had pay’d and sent thither” (102). Thomasa and her companions cannot see Asmodeo and Cleofas, so when Asmodeo says he “will immediately set them together by the Ears, by inspiring them with a lascivious Flame” and blows a “Violet-colour’d Vapour” on them, they do not know what happened (102–3). The four men begin arguing over Thomasa, quickly coming to blows and killing two of their number before being stopped by “Officers of Justice,” who arrest Thomasa and the two remaining men (103). By changing the course of action inside Thomasa’s house, Asmodeo and Cleofas are no longer simple observers but are actively interacting with characters whom they before had been passively observing. Yet they are not really part of Thomasa’s story, since she never sees them or realizes they are responsible for the fight. Thus, Le Sage is pointing out the potential in a work of fiction for those on the outside of a story—as in the narrative frame—to interact with characters within a story and change its outcome. A second instance of interaction between the story and the frame is when Asmodeo and Cleofas reflect on the meaning of a long story about two men who loved the same woman but also were great friends with each other. Cleofas comments that it is “a very fine Image of friendship, but ’tis rare” and that “I believe ’twill be more difficult to meet with two Ladies so good Friends, as generously to make a reciprocal Sacrifice of their Lovers to each other.” Asmodeo agrees, saying that “’tis what has not been yet, and never will be seen in this World: Women are not so complaisant to one another” (271). This conversation is partly meant to denigrate female

Foreign Fiction in English Translation · 161

friendship, but it also shows Cleofas and Asmodeo delineating the limits of what they consider possible in the world. The self-sacrificing actions of the two men in the story are possible though not common, whereas if they were women the story would be implausible. This is one of the rare examples of characters in a work of fiction discussing what they find credible in their “real” world. Given his references to other writers and discussions of comedy and tragedy, Le Sage seems aware of different structures for fiction and is apparently challenging the frame-story device consciously. Le Diable Boiteux contains passing references to Molière, Lope de Vega, Pedro Calderón, and “the great Racine” (121, 152, 216). Asmodeo comments in a discussion of tragic versus comic writers that “lofty Subjects furnish the Writer with almost all that is necessary, whilst in mean Characters he is expected to provide all.” This leads Cleofas to conclude that “Tragedy, by vertue of its Name, is above Comedy; but in requital, that Comick Authors are to be preferr’d before the Tragick” (218). Certainly Le Diable Boiteux intermingles the two, providing cynical observations on both comic and tragic events. Le Sage employs techniques of various types of fiction—humorous, exotic, amorous— to stretch narrative conventions while making philosophical points about human behavior. The comic fictions, like the amorous works, combine two seemingly disparate elements (comedy and social criticism) to achieve a meaningful balance. However, they differ from the amorous fictions in three important ways. First, they have a much looser plot structure: many, like Gil Blas, have no “plot” at all but instead follow the life and adventures of a particular character. Second, by necessity of not having as many sequential events, they focus much more on character development. Characters in comic works, like Donna Rosina or the actors in the Comical Romance, are unique and memorable. Unlike the lovers in amorous plots, who are forgettable and often interchangeable, comic characters exhibit attitudes and perform actions that are unconventional or unexpected. Finally, the comic works are less likely to be concerned with exact verisimilitude than they are with being entertaining. They frequently break the narrative “rules” followed strictly by other types of fiction and reveal their fictionality by having events happen that are impossible in real life. In these ways, comic works allow more room for narrative and character experimentation, though they generally have simple plots.

162 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

Exoticism Spain was not the only region that showed up repeatedly in French fiction in translation. Early eighteenth-century interest in exotic lands and cultures has been noted by historians and literary scholars alike.25 The most interesting of these are Aulnoy’s Tales of the Fairies (1699) and Antoine Galland’s Arabian Nights (1706), the first because of its innovation in combining exoticism with magic and the second for its demonstrable influence on other collections of tales. Among the works of exoticism following Arabian Nights, the most successful were those that used a similar structure with a frame narrative providing an occasion for relating many separate stories. Those fictions that employed an exotic setting but had a single plotline (not distinct stories) fared no better than most French amorous tales—that is to say, they were often only printed once or twice. The Tales of the Fairies has gained some critical attention because of its influence on later fairy tales, but only Melvin D. Palmer has discussed it as an important work of fiction in the early eighteenth century.26 Of all Aulnoy’s works of fiction translated into English, her fairy tales were the most successful: Palmer comments that “the fortune of Mme d’Aulnoy n the nineteenth century rested entirely on her fairy tales” (250). The ESTC lists twenty-six editions in the eighteenth century, and an additional ten editions in The Diverting Works of the Countess D’Anois (1707). Ruth B. Bottigheimer describes Aulnoy’s fairy tales as the second of three stages in the shift from English folktales (such as the legend of “Queen Mab”) to moralistic stories for children (exemplified by the tales of Charles Perrault).27 Aulnoy’s tales mostly have morals, but they often have violence or sex apparently meant for adult readers. In one tale, for example, the hero proves his moral worth when he sees “four Men well arm’d, that were taking away by force, a young Virgin of thirteen or fourteen years of Age” and he saves her.28 Elsewhere a princess tricks an ogre into eating her own child “at three Mouthfuls”; in another story an enchanted mouse eats the nose and eyes of an evil king and prince while they are sleeping (552, 570–71). These should not be dismissed as irrelevant stories for children; they were clearly meant for adults and were read by the same readers who purchased and read other works of fiction in the early eighteenth century. Even though most of the stories include simple morals explaining the triumph of virtue and goodness over vice and evil, the stories themselves are

Foreign Fiction in English Translation · 163

far from naive tales meant solely to exemplify the moral. There is a brutal focus on beauty: in one story a prince agrees to marry a princess but tells her brothers to “be you sure that she is as Handsome as her Picture, for otherwise you shall both be put to Death” (502). In another tale a prince who is “Bandy-leg’d, Hump-back’d; he Squinted, and his Mouth was on one Side” refuses to marry a princess who is “every whit as Ugly and Deformed as himself ” (511–12). Because both are virtuous, they are made beautiful. Repeatedly, ugly or deformed women are either portrayed as villains or are turned into beautiful ladies before being rewarded with marriage to a handsome prince. A similar problem occurs with wealth: characters are frequently given riches when they demonstrate that they are not greedy. Tales of the Fairies promotes virtue by using worldly vanities as rewards, rather than encouraging good behavior for its own sake. The exotic setting of Tales of the Fairies allows for greater imaginative possibilities without losing a sense of recognizable realism. The stories all have to do with princes, princesses, and royalty. There are certain rules of the everyday world that are still in place—princesses still have to get the permission of their fathers to marry, for example—but other rules are gone, allowing for talking animals, shape-shifting, invisibility, and similar elements that do not exist in the real world. In Tales of the Fairies, such miracles can happen any time. “Graciosa and Percinet” has a separate “FairieLand” filled with magical occurrences, but the Dutchess Grognon in the world outside Fairie-Land has pipes that dispense gold and pearls (370–71). Thus, even where the stories resemble real life, there is a continual possibility that magic will suddenly intervene. Tales of the Fairies, therefore, demand considerable suspension of disbelief from the reader, and each story requires the acceptance of a new set of rules about what can and cannot happen. While Tales of the Fairies was not about a real place, one major appeal of the most famous work of “exotic” literature in this period, Arabian Nights, was its supposed accuracy in representing the Middle East. The title page states that Arabian Nights describes life in “the Eastern Nations,” clearly designed to draw readers interested in foreign lands. This is restated in the preface, which comments that the stories “must also be pleasing, because of the Account they give us of the Customs and Manners of the Eastern Nations . . . which are better describ’d here, than in any Author that has wrote of ’em, or in the Relations of Travellers.”29 In other words, the fictional stories of Arabian Nights—which employ magical devices 164 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

like genies and flight—supposedly describe the Middle East more accurately and with greater detail than firsthand accounts of travelers. Fatma Moussa-Mahmoud points out that the representation of the Middle East was taken as true, and that “it soon became part of the task of the travellers to verify the authenticity of the Nights and relate them to what they saw.”30 For the history of fiction, however, the importance of Arabian Nights lies not in its depiction of “Eastern” culture but rather in its use of a narrative framework to create a cohesive story that can sustain many variations. Ballaster argues that compared to other translations of the Arab text, “Arabian Nights Entertainments is the least coherent and the least susceptible to a single overarching interpretation . . . . Galland’s frame soon recedes from view.”31 Compared to collections of stories without a frame, such as Tales of the Fairies, Arabian Nights has a remarkably unified storyline and the stories seem to have similar settings, characters, and rules governing the physical world. The basic frame for Arabian Nights is stated on the title page of the fourth edition as “Stories, told by the Sultaness of the Indies, to divert the Sultan from the Execution of a Bloody Vow he had made to Marry a Lady every Day, and have her [head] cut off next Morning, to avenge himself for the Disloyalty of his first Sultaness.” The frame is explained at thirty-page length before the first story, and then at the end of each “night” the frame is again mentioned, almost mechanically, showing the sultan commenting on the story just related and deciding to stay the execution of his wife until he hears the end of the story the next night. By referring back to the frame at the end of each story, Arabian Nights maintains the sense of a cohesive narrative. The brilliance of this frame narrative is that it is so open-ended that it allows for almost any number of stories. As a result, Arabian Nights could easily be printed in different lengths for a variety of audiences and was sold in two-, four-, six-, eight-, and twelve-volume editions. The English translation, from Galland’s French, was published in 1706. The second edition (1712) had 145 stories but was obviously meant to be continued: volume 4, the final volume printed, ends with the sentence “Next Night the Sultaness satisfied his Curiosity, and resumed the Story in the following Words.”32 The “third” edition (1715) upped this to 236 stories and also ends with the conclusion of a story, but no resolution to the frame narrative (6.192). Only the twelve-volume version translates Galland’s text in full, and it ends with the Sultan declaring that “you can never be at a loss for these Sort of Stories to divert me; therefore I renounce, in your Favour, the cruel Law Foreign Fiction in English Translation · 165

I had imposed on my self.”33 Thus, there is a definite closure to the frame narrative as well as the individual stories, and the conclusion helps to explain why the high number of tales was necessary: the Sultan forgives his bride only because she proves her worth with the seemingly endless supply of stories. Other collections of exotic French tales that were successful in English translation had a narrative structure similar to Arabian Nights. Turkish Tales (1708), for example, was reprinted five times and has a frame narrative in which a sultan listens to alternating stories from his wife and his viziers. Turkish Tales includes footnotes explaining place references and Turkish traditions, with details that enhance the exoticism of the setting such as that Cashmere “is a delicious Country, and its Women are so charming that the Persians, Turks and Arabians prefer ’em to all the Women in the World” (3). At the conclusion of the volume, the final story comes to an end, but there is no closure to the frame narrative. Another work of exotic tales translated from French, Montesquieu’s Persian Letters (1722), uses an interesting combination of several modes including a frame linking together separate tales. Persian Letters is epistolary and makes full use of the letter format to have several different first-person narrators, showing various perspectives on similar events and the same person writing to different recipients in diverse styles. There are two parallel plots: the travelers, Usbek and Rica, and their correspondents in Persia, including Usbek’s friends, his wives, and several of his eunuchs. Usbek acts as an anthropologist, reporting at length the culture he finds in Italy and France and retelling the stories of people he meets, much in the manner of Aulnoy’s letters about Spain, while Rica assimilates by wearing European clothing and showing his “wit” (1.107, 191). Meanwhile, at home in Persia, Usbek’s friends write to him asking about his journeys, and the eunuchs complain of problems keeping the other servants and Usbek’s wives under control. Persian Letters is satirical, exaggerating French corruption and the Persian seraglio, but the exact targets and import of its satire is not very clear. Frank Palmeri argues that “in the Lettres Persanes, the fashionable, tolerant, and corrupt social world of the Parisians stands in sharp contrast to the pure, rigid, and repressive domestic morality of the Persians.”34 Certainly, the two worlds are presented as opposite and contrasting, but neither seems to be ideal. A letter from the chief eunuch to Usbek’s servant Ibbi reveals

166 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

that the eunuch is very unhappy with his position and that he is “never sure of my Master’s Favour a moment” (1.34). Indeed, Usbek’s harshness is exemplified in a number of letters to his wives as he tries to quell their resistance to the strict rules of the seraglio. The discontent of the wives and eunuchs increases through the two volumes of letters, showing flaws in the carefully regulated Persian domestic structure. The increasing trouble finally culminates in Usbek instructing his servant in the seraglio to “root out the guilty, and make such tremble as would have been so,” along with a letter to the wives that begins, “May this Letter be like a Thunder-bolt, bursting from a Cloud amidst a storm of rattling Hail and Lightning!” (2.297–98). While Usbek is busy learning about European philosophy and coffeehouse politics, his own household in Persia is falling apart. His servant tries to control the wives by increasing the severity of the seraglio rules, but he fails to realize that the seemingly chaste Roxana has a lover. The final letter is from Roxana after she has taken poison, undeceiving Usbek by pointing out his hypocrisy: “How could’st thou think me so credulous, as to fancy my self sent into the world for no other purpose than to adore thy Caprices? that at the same time thou allowed’st thy self all manner of liberties, thou hadst a right to confine all my desires? No: I liv’d indeed in servitude, but still I was free” (2.307–8). The Persia of Persian Letters is a world where people are just as flawed and duplicitous as they are in France, where restraint and virtue conceal licentiousness and regulation hides cruelty. Persian Letters does not just criticize particular cultures for their corruption, but points out a human tendency toward hypocrisy that transcends national boundaries. Other exotic tales that did not follow the same pattern as Arabian Nights had more limited success in English translation, though this could have been for a variety of reasons. Gueulette’s A Thousand and One Quarters of Hours (1716), for example, has a very elaborate frame narrative, so the transition to separate stories on page 57 seems very abrupt. Some of the thirty-four stories have self-contained stories within them (a story within a story within the frame), making the overall structure more opaque. For example, one story about a traveling prince contains a twenty-eight-page digression detailing the entire history of someone he meets (71–99). This inner story is told from a first-person point of view, while the tale about the runaway prince and the frame narrative are in the third person. There is no

Foreign Fiction in English Translation · 167

return to the main frame narrative at the end, so there is no conclusion to the elaborate plot that began the work. Exotic fiction is most appealing if it capitalizes on the strangeness of its location to combine the fantastic with the real: readers evidently wanted to hear about harems, genies, and fairies, not mundane aspects of daily life. At the same time, exotic fiction appeals to readers because it is supposedly an accurate representation of a real place. With the exception of Tales of the Fairies, which was probably recognized as highly imaginative given its use of magic, the translations of exotic fiction were all about actual places that could be found on a map and visited in real life. The distance of the exotic locales from England allowed the rules of plausibility to bend: events and characters that seem completely impossible in a domestic setting might actually exist in unknown regions further away. The use of frame narratives for these exotic tales also allowed for almost infinite permutations of the works in different sizes and formats for a variety of readers—making exotic tales accessible to a wider range of readers than the larger-format amorous or comic fictions. Exotic fiction shows how writers were appealing simultaneously to readers wanting plausible verisimilitude and readers wanting imaginative fantasy.

Two Frequently Reprinted Foreign Works: Don Quixote and Telemachus If one examines the list of French and Spanish works translated into English in the early eighteenth century, two stand out for their number of subsequent editions, reprints, and further translations. How did they succeed where so many others did not? Don Quixote, first translated into English in the early seventeenth century, was reprinted regularly for more than two centuries. Its length made the full version expensive, but it was frequently abridged and adapted to reach readers at all economic levels. Telemachus, by contrast, is exceptional for the high number of editions it had despite its great length. It engaged with several different fiction traditions— exoticism, didacticism, and life narratives—and its philosophical and political messages meant that it could appeal to readers who might not normally read fiction. The history of the reprints and adaptations of these two works provide interesting case studies of two different strategies for success in the publication of translated fiction.

168 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

Cervantes and His Imitators

Cervantes dominates Spanish fiction in translation. Don Quixote is one of the most translated books of any language: it was translated into five full-length English versions before 1750 and had numerous adaptations and abridgments.35 Interest in Don Quixote led to the translation of other Spanish fictions, such as Lisarda and The Salamanca Doctor, as well as two Spanish continuations, one by Montalbán and one by “Avellaneda” (the latter probably a pseudonym). Even beyond the immediate responses to Don Quixote, Cervantes’s humorous style, picaresque characters, episodic narrative structure, and portrayal of Spanish culture came to dominate other representations of Spain. It remains the most frequently cited Spanish fiction in histories of the English novel—and often the only Spanish work given serious consideration. How representative is Don Quixote of seventeenth-century fiction or of Spanish fiction? Aside from the direct respondents to and imitators of Cervantes, Don Quixote did not appreciably change the nature of fiction being written in English. Few English works follow its model. It is an oddity—an important, interesting, complex oddity, that was definitely well known in the English-speaking world, to judge by references—but still an outlier, not the marker of a turning point in English fiction. Although Don Quixote did not directly influence the types of fiction produced, it is a long work of narrative prose with unprecedented attention to detail, highly dynamic characters, and a clear division between “real” and “fantasy.” Salzman calls Don Quixote “the most impressive example of the anti-romance impulse in Renaissance prose fiction” and “one of the greatest examples of self-conscious fiction,” but the English works in the same tradition that he cites all appear at least a half-century after Quixote was published (273, 281). In fact, he admits that “Cervantes’ great example was not fully absorbed in England until Fielding wrote Joseph Andrews” in 1742— a full 130 years after Don Quixote first appeared in English (274). Terry Eagleton claims that Quixote is “sometimes mistakenly called the first novel” but then calls it “one of the first great novels.”36 Davis acknowledges its importance but argues that “it lacks certain crucial elements which would clinch its existence as a novel” (12). McKeon avoids the problem of proving Don Quixote’s influence by arguing that it encapsulates the rise of the novel, “that schematic movement (from naive empiricism to extreme skepticism,

Foreign Fiction in English Translation · 169

from progressive ideology to conservative ideology) which in the English context is spread over a much greater period and range of works” (292). Williams exhibits the problem with Don Quixote in the literary history of fiction. He argues that Quixote’s achievement is its combination of realism with humanism, forming a narrative based around one character—but then admits that “in spite of the fact that in Don Quixote the novel as a literary form has clearly shown its capacity to exist right at the beginning of the century, its development in the decades which followed Cervantes’ death was irregular and slow.”37 If Don Quixote is so great, why did it not result in more imitations and a clearer shift in fiction toward similar narratives, particularly in England? There is a very practical explanation for the long delay in Don Quixote’s influence on English fiction. For most of the seventeenth century, Don Quixote was published in English only in a thick, two-volume folio edition. The first chapbook version appeared in 1686—which was followed by a new translation in 1687, a 200-page duodecimo abridgment in 1689, and a three-part play by Thomas D’Urfey in 1694–96. Up until the chapbook version in the late 1680s, therefore, the only readers of Don Quixote were those who could afford to buy the folio or knew someone who could. The long romances that Quixote reads were also only available in large, expensive editions, so readers unfamiliar with them would miss the meta-critical satire in Don Quixote. The abridgments highlight this difference in audience knowledge by eliminating all except the vaguest references to the romance tradition and concentrating on Quixote’s foolish actions. The standard translation, on which the abridgments were based, was done in 1612 by Thomas Shelton. Two new translations appeared in 1700: one by Stevens, and one by “several hands” (in fact, probably entirely by Peter Motteux, whose name appears on the title page as the editor). The Stevens version, which is partly based on Shelton, is far more literal compared with the Spanish than the Motteux translation. The preface explains that “this work is partly Corrected and partly Translated anew, for where the old Translation would bear with many amendments I have made use of it, only Inserting, Altering, and striking out as occasion serv’d” (vol. 1, sig. A4r). Stevens tries to stay as close to the original Spanish text as possible. Motteux’s preface complains of the literal approach taken by earlier English translations, mainly Shelton, saying that “’tis granted by impartial Judges, that the Language falls short of the purity of the English Tongue, even of that time. . . . For the first Translators generally kept so close to the Author, 170 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

that they were obscure, and even as Spanish as he in ten thousand places,” so in this new translation “In some places, we have minded the Sense more than the Words; some things having a Grace in one Language, that wou’d not be lik’d in another” (vol. 1, sig. A5v-A6r). Julie Candler Hayes points out that Motteux’s preface was “something of a sea-change in the English appreciation of the Quixote” as “representative of universal characteristics” rather than a humorous story about a character distanced from the reader.38 The freer approach to translation makes the text more relevant for the audience rather than staying completely true to the author—and it is therefore the more market-conscious method for translation. The difference between the translations can be seen from a comparison of their versions of the same passage. At the beginning of chapter 9, book 3, tome 1, Quixote blames Sancho for their troubles, though Sancho had tried to warn him. The two translations render Sancho’s response as follows: You will no more take warning, quoth Sancho, than I’ll turn Turk. But since you say, that if you had believ’d me, you had avoided this Mischief, believe me now and you will shun a greater: For you must understand, that no Knighthood or Chivalry is of any Authority with the Holy Brotherhood; for it cares not a Straw for all the Knights Errant in the World; and know, that methinks I hear their Arrows buz about my Ears already. (Stevens, 1.153) That is, quoth Sancho, when the Devil’s blind. But since you say you had scap’d this Mischief had you believ’d me, good Sir, believe me now and you’ll scape a greater; for I must tell you, that those of the Holy Brotherhood don’t stand in awe of your Chivalry, nor do they care a straw for all the Knights-Errant in the World. Methinks I have ’em at my heels already, and their rusty Weapons about my Ears. (“several hands,” 1.241)

In the first passage, Stevens translates the first part of the passage closely, even when it does not make perfect sense in English. The phrase “I’ll turn Turk,” for example, is taken from the Spanish “yo soy turco,” though it seems odd rather than commonplace in English. The second part of the passage is a freer translation: the Spanish phrase “no se le da a ella por cuantos caballeros andantes hay dos maravedís,” meaning literally that the brotherhood “does not give two maravedís [a small Spanish coin] how many wandering Foreign Fiction in English Translation · 171

knights there are,” is here replaced by the English colloquialism “cares not a Straw.”39 Shelton’s version renders the phrase “cares not two farthings,” which keeps the reference to coins while making the value relevant for English readers.40 The “several hands” version, however, renders the same passage very differently. Where Stevens translates the colloquialism literally at the expense of using recognizable turns of phrase, the “several hands” version replaces them with other idioms (“when the Devil’s blind”). The phrase “rusty Weapons” might be a mistranslation, or it might be an attempt to update the reference to “arrows” to apply to more modern metal arms. This translation does follow through on the prefatory comments about being more concerned with meaning than phrasing. This comparison shows that there was sufficient interest in Don Quixote for multiple translations of the full version to be printed at the same time, that translators are consciously separating themselves from competitors by highlighting their approach to translation, and that all the translations were liberal in conveying the spirit as well as the meaning of the Spanish. Tellingly, Stevens’s more literal rendering was reprinted three times, the last edition appearing in 1706; the freer and more modernized “several hands” version was reprinted eight times, the last London edition being printed in 1749. There may be many reasons for this, but the “several hands” edition clearly found favor with English readers long after the Stevens translation did, and the key differences between them are the colloquial style and smaller, four-volume format of the “several hands” version. Unlike classical translations, where readers valued literal accuracy equally with good poetry, readers of fiction translations like Don Quixote evidently preferred those that made for interesting, readable English—regardless of its accuracy in representing the Spanish original. Unsurprisingly, there are a number of abridgments, both chapbook length  and single-volume duodecimos. The length of Don Quixote was problematic even for readers who could afford the time and money for the full text: the preface to the Stevens translation states, “The reader may observe that the Printing of this Work in two small Volumes, and a little Letter, is for the conveniency of carriage[;]. . . it ought to be made fit for the Pocket, where as till now it has always appear’d in Folio, or large Quarto Volumes, only to be read in a Study, as not portable” (sig. A7r). If Don Quixote were to circulate beyond the private libraries of the wealthy, it would need to be available in a shorter, less expensive, and more convenient version. The chapbooks highlight the comedy, retelling visually memorable events 172 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

such as Quixote tilting at windmills or Sancho being tossed in a blanket (discussed above in chapter 2). There were also at least two serial versions, one in prose and one in verse, published in monthly installments. The prose version was in much longer installments costing 1s 6d each, but only the first, going up to the beginning of book 3, appears to have been published.41 It has Spanish facing the pages of the English translation to help readers learning the language. Besides the abridgments and chapbooks, there are a number of imitations of Don Quixote that retell the story entirely or extend it with further adventures in a similar style. The verse edition of Don Quixote is a good example of an imitation: the title page claims it is “Merrily Translated into Hudibrastick Verse By Edward Ward.”42 Williams calls it “quite excruciatingly bad,” and an example of how “in England Cervantes’ work was burlesqued rather than imitated” (85–86). The rhyming doggerel of the verse is a bit trying for the length of the text, but it makes sense for what Ward chooses to highlight. Gone is the dark satire of Cervantes’s part 2; the two volumes of verse only go as far as Quixote’s last battle from part 1. The rhyming verse points out Quixote’s ridiculousness for humorous effect. For example, the following passage describes Quixote about to attack the windmills: No sooner had the Valiant Knight Made all things for the Combat fit, Couch’d his bright Lance, and fix’d his Bum In his War Saddle, close and plumb, But he cry’d, Stand ye Cowards all, So Big, so Mighty, and so Tall, That I a single Knight may try Your Strength and Valour e’er you fly. (1.278)

The singsong rhythm makes Quixote’s challenge to the windmills far less serious than it otherwise would be. The end-rhyme emphasizes Quixote’s seat on his horse rather than his armor or weapons, making his preparations for attack seem absurd. Ward’s verse highlights the humor and directs the satire at Quixote rather than at readers of romance. In addition to the English imitations and adaptations of Quixote, two Spanish works translated into English in the early eighteenth century tried to capitalize on Cervantes’s success: The Diverting Works of the Famous Miguel de Cervantes (1709) and A Continuation of the Comical history of the most Ingenious Knight, Don Quixote (1705).43 The first of these has a frame Foreign Fiction in English Translation · 173

story about six cavaliers who entertain a group of wedding guests with a different story each night. Some of the stories are rather conventional, with mistaken identity and coincidence driving the plots, but others are more unusual. The second story, for example, begins when the gentleman Don Gaspar accidently uses a meat hook to kill a youth living in his mistress’s basement (62–63). His second mistress, Florentina, confesses to him that she had an affair with her brother-in-law, who then killed his wife and all their servants (85–95). The last story in the volume includes a hermit who dug up his dead wife’s skull and kept it in his house as a memento mori (229). Such incest, violence, and bizarre behavior are hardly typical of Spanish fiction and certainly do not seem much like Don Quixote. Montalbán was apparently unconcerned with imitating Cervantes’s style. The Continuation does not pretend to be by Cervantes, but it does try to extend the story following the first volume of Cervantes’s work—and, in fact, it likely instigated Cervantes to publish his own sequel in 1615.44 The title page of Stevens’s 1705 translation states that it is “a Third Volume,” but as Quixote dies at the end of Cervantes’s second volume, it is clearly an alternate sequel rather than a continuation of the series. The preface criticizes Cervantes’s Sancho since “I often forget it is Sancho who speaks, and am forc’d against my will, to reflect it is the Author, under Sancho’s Name” (sig. A3v). The writer of this preface clearly values the illusion of reality and is irritated when Sancho’s inconsistencies render him less plausible. The Continuation is very much like the first part of Don Quixote, in which Quixote goes on adventures inspired by reading romance, without as much harshness as Cervantes’s satirical second volume. At the end he suffers an ignominious death: he attacks a group of Spanish soldiers thinking they are pagans and kills an officer, so a nameless soldier shoots him point-blank in the face (435). While not reprinted as frequently as Cervantes’s Don Quixote, the Continuation did appear in three subsequent English editions in the eighteenth century. While Cervantes’s other work was never as popular as Don Quixote, either in Spain or England, six of his Novelas Ejemplares were translated by Walter Pope along with a story supposedly by Petrarch, printed together as Select Novels in 1694. One reason they may not have been as widespread in England as Quixote was their appeal to a Catholic audience. In “The Spanish-English Lady,” for example, the hero, Ferdinando, is afraid that when he visits England he will be persecuted and forced to become a mar-

174 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

tyr, and the heroine, Izabella, considers a convent a viable alternative to marriage (8, 45). They also lack the humor and satire that was evidently the most memorable part of Quixote (judging from abridgments and later references). Quixote remained widely imitated, reprinted, and retranslated throughout the eighteenth century. The Phenomenon of Fénelon’s Telemachus (1699)

In the context of other French works that appealed to English readers, the rampant reprinting of Fénelon’s Telemachus is bizarre. Large, rambling, and philosophical, with a forgettable hero, it has none of the characteristics that set apart works like Arabian Nights and Gil Blas—yet it was issued in an astonishing eighty-three separate editions in the eighteenth century. Why was Telemachus so successful? I would argue that its success depended on several factors in combination. The plot is unpredictable: although Telemachus’s fate is well known from the Odyssey, Fénelon puts him in hazardous situations from which escape seems uncertain. Telemachus combines several ongoing trends into a cohesive narrative. The classical references are to very well-known works (chiefly the Odyssey), and they are not essential to understanding Telemachus as an independent work. Perhaps most important to its initial success was the scandal it caused in France that resulted in Fénelon’s removal from his post as royal tutor and confinement to his diocese. Its continued reprinting in English in the latter eighteenth century was assured by two new, much-trumpeted translations by John Hawkesworth and Smollett.45 The main plot of Telemachus fills a narrative gap in the Odyssey, explaining what Odysseus’s son Telemachus does while searching for his lost father. In Fénelon’s tale, Telemachus and his companion Mentor (who is Athena in disguise) are shipwrecked and help a Tyrian king suppress a barbarian invasion. On their way home, however, they are captured by Egyptian pirates and kept as slaves, but eventually earn freedom by advising a king, Idomeneus. They are shipwrecked on Calypso’s island, escape, and end up in Idomeneus’s new kingdom. The second half of Telemachus shows Mentor advising Idomeneus in setting up his kingdom properly and making peace with his enemies, and Telemachus helping to quell rebellion and immoral behavior. Finally, Telemachus returns to Ithaca and meets his father. The plot is somewhat convoluted, with much of the action reported after the

Foreign Fiction in English Translation · 175

fact (the story opens with the shipwreck on Calypso’s island). Since any reader of the Odyssey would know that Telemachus eventually returns to Ithaca and reunites with Odysseus, his eventual success is assured. With this lack of suspense, the attraction of Telemachus is the way in which events unfold and the lessons the main character learns, rather than uncertainty about his fate. The major question of the book is what qualities make a good king: Telemachus is exposed to both bad and good models. Early on he watches as the Egyptian king Bocchoris, “drunk with his own Power and Felicity,” is brutally killed (63). From this, Telemachus concludes that “no King is worthy to Command, or can be happy in the Possession of his Power, unless he himself be govern’d by Reason” (65). In every case, excess and luxury lead to misery and corruption. Mentor ultimately presents Idomeneus as the best model for a king, willing to learn from his mistakes. Mentor helps Idomeneus restructure Salentum to prevent corruption, and he “endeavoured to retrench vain Pomp and Luxury, which depraved good Manners, and to introduce a noble and frugal Plainness in every thing” (266). As part of this plan, he suppresses everything from fine clothes and food to music and decorative arts. Mentor changes Idomeneus’s kingdom from a center of commercial trade to an agricultural economy: “Your CityTradesmen, now transplanted into the Country, will train up their Children to Labour, and enure them to the Yoke of a rural Life, and in the process of Time, all the Country round shall be stock’d with strong, vigorous Men, addicted to Husbandry” (274). In the bucolic utopia Mentor envisions, the only taxes will be those levied as fines on people who do not work, and laborers will be so grateful for the opportunity to farm the land that they will gladly go to war to defend their country when necessary. Corruption will be avoided by population growth, “For every Family being grown Numerous, and possessing but a competent Portion of Land, shall be forc’d to bestow continual labour upon the Culture of it” (281). Mentor’s ideal country is self-sufficient and demonstrates its greatness through population expansion and, eventually, colonization, rather than wealth, learning, or artistic refinement. Put into practice, Mentor’s advice does lead to a kingdom with less corruption, but as Telemachus observes, Salentum fails by all the usual standards of greatness. Telemachus is surprised by the appearance of the kingdom, commenting that “the City is become a Desert” (620). Mentor explains that a city with more cultivated arts and fewer raw goods and agriculture “is like a Monster whose Head is of an extravagant Size, and whose whole Body is 176 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

extremely thin and depriv’d of Nourishment; so that it bears no proportion to that Head” (621). His actions in reforming luxury and changing Salentum to an agricultural economy are meant to balance the wealth of the whole kingdom. The chief lesson Mentor imparts to Telemachus through the example of Salentum is “that two Things are very pernicious in the Government of Nations, and scarce ever admit a Remedy. The first is an unjust and too violent Authority in Kings; the other is Luxury, which corrupts the Manners of the People” (623). By the time Telemachus returns to Ithaca, he has seen not only the problems that these two flaws can incite, but also the solution of a king and country carefully regulated by restraint and reason. Mentor’s teaching promotes alternative criteria for judging power and greatness based on moral behavior, efficiency, and economy, rather than wealth and grandeur. In addition to its philosophical import, Telemachus links to three important trends in fiction in the early eighteenth century: didacticism, exoticism, and fictional lives. Its instructional purpose is to comment on the proper kind of kingship—ostensibly to give practical advice to Telemachus, who will eventually rule Ithaca, but also to criticize kings following other models. In this way, it is like political works in the tradition of Utopia (1516) or Oceana (1656), which employ a fictional world as an ideal version of the real world, thereby critiquing the current state of government. Fénelon instructs both the reader and Telemachus by providing positive and negative examples, a classic technique of didactic fiction used in Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) and Letters from the Dead to the Living (1702). Its exotic setting, taking place around the eastern Mediterranean, is similar to the portrayal of the East in works such as Arabian Nights (1706). Telemachus employs stereotypes about the East such as piracy, slavery, and excess luxury, like those found in Abra-Mulè (1696) and The Happy Slave (1699). The focus on Telemachus’s development is similar to other life narratives from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, though it does not explain Telemachus’s childhood nor follow him into adulthood to see how Mentor’s lessons helped him as king. Telemachus therefore might be expected to appeal to readers with different interests, from philosophers who rarely read fiction to fiction readers who liked tales about the East. While the story is sometimes halted by tedious speeches from Mentor, it is easily accessible to readers with limited knowledge of other works. The classical references are mostly superficial. The plot ostensibly takes place between the end of book 3 of the Odyssey, when Telemachus sets off from Foreign Fiction in English Translation · 177

Ithaca to look for Odysseus, and the beginning of book 14, when Odysseus returns to Ithaca and reunites with Telemachus. Yet Telemachus does not quite fit with the Odyssey. In Telemachus, the title character visits Tyre, Egypt, Crete, and Salentum, spending his journey traveling between places reachable only by sea. In the Odyssey, Odysseus’s son goes to Sparta, where he meets Menelaus and Helen (book 4). Fénelon shows the death of Nestor’s son Peisistratus, whereas in the Odyssey he is Telemachus’s travel companion (567–69; Odyssey, book 3). Telemachus, like his father, visits the underworld to seek Odysseus. Fénelon uses the underworld as an example of the morality he presents elsewhere, showing goodness rewarded and vice punished. The description of the punishment of kings who abused their power occupies much of the underworld section (486–96). There Telemachus sees the ultimate penalty of corruption and luxury, reinforcing the example of Idomeneus as a king who altered his country to save it from ruin. Readers familiar with classical literature would see how Fénelon was veering from the Odyssey and adding elements from other works, such as a description of the death of Hercules pulled largely from Sophocles’s plays Women of Trachis and Philoctetes, but knowledge of such references is not necessary to understand Telemachus. When Telemachus was first published in 1699, French readers familiar with the court read it as a satire on Louis XIV’s absolute monarchy. The first English translation appeared anonymously that same year, though the preface calls it “attributed by the Publick Voice to the Arch-Bishop of Cambray.” The brief preface bluntly stated the subversive intent of the work: “The Reason he had to involve his Instructions in Fable, will be obvious to all who shall consider that as he wrote for Princes, who seldom fail to reject all Precepts that are not guilded with Delight; so he Lives under a Monarchy that will not suffer open and undisguised Truth.” This is the opinion of an English translator or editor about Louis’s court, rather than an explanation from Fénelon himself—and it emphasizes the same stereotypes about France being restrictive that are found in the fictions of amorous intrigue. English readers of newspapers, however, would have already heard of Fénelon’s scandalous writing. The Post Man and the Historical Account had published in 1698 a copy of a letter supposedly written by Louis XIV to the Pope about Fénelon’s Maxims of the Saints on the Inner Life (1697). Louis begins the letter by explaining, “The Book which the Archbishop of Cambray has Compiled, having made a great noise in my Kingdom, I caused it to be examined by several Bishops, and a great number of Doctors, 178 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

and sober Religious Men of all Orders; all these unanimous, as well Bishop as Doctors have reported back to me, that it was a very evil and dangerous Book.” He concludes with a plea to the Pope “to pronounce Sentence upon the Book and the Doctrine it Contains.”46 Louis may be trying to quash Fénelon’s work, but nothing is more calculated to excite public interest than such a letter. This appears to have been the reaction in France: the Flying Post reports in June 1698, “The Prosecution of those People [the Quietists], makes ever one to enquire into their Opinions, and read the Archbishop of Cambray’s Books.”47 By July the Flying Post declared, “The Archbishop of Cambray’s Affair makes more noise than ever.”48 Given such anticipation, we should not be surprised to find the first advertisement for the English translation of Telemachus appear in the Post Man, the same paper that printed Louis’s letter and among those that reported most frequently on the scandal.49 Later translations of the work drew new readers to it just when interest might be expected to flag. Like other translated works that remained popular through new translations, new versions of Telemachus updated it for readers accustomed to mid-eighteenth-century fiction. The Hawkesworth translation (1768) was the most widely reprinted in the later eighteenth century. Published by subscription with an impressive list of subscribers, and dedicated to the Earl of Shelburne, the Hawkesworth translation heightens and complicates the prose to make Telemachus sound more like a work of high literature. Compare, for example, how the different translations treat the first sentence: Calypso continued Disconsolate for the departure of Ulysses: Her Grief was so violent, that she thought her self unhappy in being Immortal: Her Grotto was no more heard echoing to her tuneful Voice: The Nymphs that serv’d her, durst not venture to speak to her. (1699 translation, 1) The grief of Calypso for the departure of Ulysses, would admit of no comfort; and she regretted her immortality, as that which could only perpetuate affliction, and aggravate calamity by despair: her grotto no more echoed with the music of her voice; and her nymphs waited at a distance, with timidity and silence. (Hawkesworth, 1)

The first is a fairly literal translation, maintaining the word order of the French sentences where possible.50 The only real change is the phrase “Her Foreign Fiction in English Translation · 179

Grief was so violent” for the milder “Dans sa douleur” (i.e., “in her grief ”), the former giving more explanation for Calypso’s behavior. Hawkesworth, however, has made no attempt to prefer English cognates, as the earlier translator did, and instead makes the language more elaborate and ornate. He adds whole phrases (“as that which could only perpetuate affliction”), and changes those that relate more directly to the French (“music of her voice” for “son chant,” and “nymphs waited at a distance” for “les nymphes n’osaient lui parler”). The overall effect is much more elegant prose, rather than the straightforward, simpler sentences of the French. One can see how this new translation might attract readers of higher status. Telemachus had widespread influence, both in philosophy and in literature. Patrick Riley, the editor of the modern edition, calls it one of the “two most important pieces of French political theory at the turn of the eighteenth century.”51 Rousseau refers to Telemachus in Emile, ou De L’éducation, and at least one modern scholar has argued that the relationship between Emile and his teacher is based directly on Telemachus and Mentor.52 Ronald Paulson has noted connections between Telemachus and Fielding’s fiction.53 The longest imitation of Telemachus is Andrew Ramsay’s The Travels of Cyrus (1727), which shows how the young prince Cyrus learns about kingship before taking over the throne of Persia.54 Ramsay knew Fénelon personally and wrote a lengthy biography of him after his death in 1715.55 Unsurprisingly, Cyrus presents a comparable philosophy of kingship to Telemachus, but with more reference to Christianity. It appealed to readers in similar ways as Telemachus did and was also very popular, reprinted twenty-nine times in the eighteenth century. I have used the example of Telemachus to show how a single work could remain popular, attracting new readers even long after its initial publication. The frequent reprinting of Telemachus is especially striking because of its length—nearly seven hundred pages—and its philosophical import, which might be thought to conflict with its narrative appeal. There were cheaper abridgments, but the 1699 translation sold at the high price of 6s, while the Hawkesworth translation cost a guinea (21s).56 Yet as I have argued here, it was this combination of several types of writing—philosophy and classical revision as well as different fictional modes—that enabled Telemachus to capture various audiences. The scandal about Fénelon and the clandestine nature of the work as a criticism of Louis XIV’s monarchy generated excitement about it from its first publication, but its content is the reason for its continued success after Louis and Fénelon were both dead. 180 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

Both Don Quixote and Telemachus have similarities that separate them from other works of Spanish and French fiction. They focus on the life of a single character who changes over the course of the narrative and provides lessons for the reader—cautionary in the case of Quixote, and exemplary in the case of Telemachus. They both combine several recognizable types of fiction: Quixote employs humor and intrigue, and Telemachus mingles exoticism with didacticism. Importantly, both were updated to stay current with changing trends in fiction. Thus, they remained interesting and fresh to readers in the later eighteenth century, rather than becoming relics of an earlier time the way unchanged fiction did (as with the works of Scarron and Aulnoy). A major point of my discussion here is that some of these strategies for success are part of the texts themselves (the narrative structure, characters, and themes), but others are part of how the work was marketed and adapted to different markets (updating the language, abridging the work for cheaper editions). Both are necessary for a work of fiction to achieve the level of success of Don Quixote and Telemachus. Although there were some translations from other languages, they were a fraction of the number of works of French and Spanish fiction in translation. The influence of foreign works on English fiction is difficult to estimate. We should be cautious about assuming that these works were widely read, even if they were reprinted several times: they were mostly very expensive, often printed in large format in multiple volumes and clearly meant to be kept in the libraries of the wealthy. A few works, like Don Quixote, were abridged and sold cheaply, but we have to assume that most readers (and many writers) did not have access to the majority of works covered in this chapter. The translated fiction available was those works that had achieved success in their original languages, but not necessarily with a wide audience. Many of the foreign works focus on nobility and courtiers, and their intended audience was perhaps similar. The types of fiction translated did change over time, both because fiction in France and Spain was changing, and because of the tendency of the English market to follow trends driven by the translation of a particularly successful book. In the 1690s, the foreign fiction was mostly short works of amorous or courtly intrigue. Following Telemachus in 1699, there were several works of philosophic or didactic fiction of a similar nature, just as there were a number of “exotic” works translated after the success of the Thousand and One Nights in 1706. In the 1710s and 1720s, the amorous fiction in Foreign Fiction in English Translation · 181

translation generally focused on the history of one person’s life, rather than courtly intrigue with lots of characters and intricate plots. This trend, as I will argue in the next two chapters, was reflected in new English fiction in this period. Throughout the early eighteenth century, however, older works of fiction were still being reprinted, so to a reader looking for foreign fiction in the eighteenth century, Quevedo (1580–1645) and Le Sage (1668–1747) would appear to be contemporaries. The frequent use of historical settings in these works and the interest they take in rewriting historical events and famous lives also blur any sense of chronology. Thus, if we look at newly translated works, we can see some changes in narrative length, form, and content between 1690 and 1730; but if we look at what was being printed, the whole period has a general interest in amorous, comic, and exotic foreign fiction.

182 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

6 Fiction with Purpose

s About half of the works of fiction published in English in the early eighteenth century were newly written (not translations or reprints), but the vast majority of them do not appear in modern literary histories. A few works have received a great deal of attention—but most have simply been forgotten. This chapter and the next (“Fiction as Entertainment”) survey the nearly two hundred works of English fiction published for the first time between 1690 and 1730. Here, I consider the fiction that was presented as serving a purpose beyond entertainment: political and topical fiction, moral and social satire, and religious fiction. Allegories such as Nine Pious Pilgrims may not seem to have much in common with scandalogues like New Atalantis, but they share a similar concept of fiction as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. Since surveying all two hundred thoroughly is impossible to do at any reasonable length, I shall focus on those works that were reprinted in multiple editions in the eighteenth century. Reading them in the context of other fictions with similar contents and purposes drastically changes how we understand canonical texts and English fiction more broadly. These works demonstrate one way fiction writers were trying to justify their enterprise, as well as a strategy taken by booksellers to increase the potential readership of individual works beyond readers interested solely in entertainment. This was a world where Robinson Crusoe was sold alongside works of religion rather than fiction and Friendship in Death was reprinted as frequently as A Tale of a Tub; recognizing these contexts for fiction helps us to see how its original readers might have encountered and understood it. The works that 183

succeeded, I shall argue, did so because they could ride multiple trends at the right time—not because they were wholly new or unusual, but because they drew on what was already appealing. A successful work, in turn, could sway the trend as other writers sought to imitate it. Defoe, Swift, Haywood, and others mastered this strategy. Innovation alone was not rewarded; successful books revamped types of fiction already in vogue.

Mapping Fiction Trends The total number of titles produced of all types increased in the 1720s, and though production of fiction was fairly consistent throughout the period 1690–1720, there were some definite trends. Some are easily explained by outside events—for example, more political fiction produced during the tumultuous years at the end of Queen Anne’s reign—but others show the fiction market responding to popular texts as well as external pressures. Mapping out these trends gives a broad-scale picture of the world of new fiction in the early eighteenth century. Over time, there was an increase in the number of different works of fiction printed, and new fiction became a bigger part of the fiction market. Figure 1 compares the number of works of new fiction with the number of works of translated fiction over time. As this chart demonstrates, at the beginning of this period, in 1690–1694, there were nearly twice as many works of translated fiction as new works (31 titles versus 17). By the end, in 1725–29, there were twice as many new works as translations (41 new works to just 21 translations). Several factors help explain this. First, more new fiction was being produced as print production increased, enabling publishers to print more newly written works by English writers than they had previously. There were a few writers in the 1720s especially, such as Haywood, Barker, Aubin, and possibly Defoe, who had several works successful enough to generate multiple reprints. Hopeful writers might see such success and try writing fiction themselves. Second, nearly all of the translated fiction was from French or Spanish, and the sharp drop in translations between the periods 1705–9 and 1710–14 coincides with the War of the Spanish Succession. Publishers might not have as easy access to French and Spanish texts, and they might not have wanted to print translations of these works while Britain was at war with those countries. The corresponding rise in new fiction compensated for the drop in translations around 1710. Finally, as I will elaborate 184 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

Figure 1. New works of fiction and translations, by 5-year intervals

below, two trends in new English fiction—political works in the period 1710–14, and amorous tales in the 1720s—accounted for great increases in new fiction in those periods. Dividing the fiction into two categories—fiction that has a purpose other than entertainment and fiction that does not—shows that when one mode was more popular, the other was less so, until a great increase in the number of entertaining works in the 1720s. Figure 2 depicts the number of titles for each category at five-year intervals. This clearly shows that when fiction with purpose was on the rise, as in the period 1700–1709, fiction for entertainment was on a relative downturn. The spike in entertaining fiction in the 1720s, however, is very striking: why so many more titles for entertainment then than earlier? One reason is that there was a spate of relatively short amorous works (of the Love in Excess variety) that were not printed more than once or twice. This means that while there were more different titles produced in the 1720s, they were not necessarily more successful or longer, more complex works. If we look only at works reprinted at least five times in the eighteenth century, we get a much more balanced picture of the different types of fiction available. Table 12 lists the new works of English fiction from the period 1690–1730 that were printed five or more times. As this table shows, twenty-four out of the thirty-three works reprinted the most were fiction for entertainment, and eighteen out of those twenty-four were in the 1720s. Fiction with Purpose · 185

Figure 2. Works of fiction with purpose and for entertainment, by 5-years intervals

Just two satires, two political works, and four religious works make this list. The lasting works, then, to judge by reprints, are those that have entertaining stories—not those that are out to make a point or to educate the reader. This is not the case if we look only at those few works of new English fiction that were reprinted at least fifteen times in the eighteenth century: A Tale of a Tub, Robinson Crusoe and Farther Adventures, Moll Flanders, Gulliver’s Travels, The Voyages of Robert Boyle, The Hermit, and Friendship in Death. Of these eight, one (Friendship in Death) has no plot, one has only a very meandering, digressive plot (Tale of a Tub), and the others are episodic. None have the compact, heavily plot-driven narrative that we find in works like Love in Excess, but all have elements of story and character that might appeal long after their original publication. These categories are very fluid. A work about crime like Moll Flanders is also about love, Robinson Crusoe is about his tangible travels as well as his spiritual journey, and Gulliver is about voyages to imaginary locations as well as a satire on English society and human nature. This overlap is part of the point I am trying to make about fiction in this period: it defies categorization and does not follow rules of genre and subgenre. As I argued in the first chapter, even delineating which works are fiction is difficult given the mutability of terms and definitions. However, categorizing the fiction very broadly by type can help us identify trends and similarities between works published around the same time. One such trend that is particularly visible, as mentioned above, is the 186 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

YEAR (1ST ED.)

1693 1696 1704 1705 1706 1706 1709 1712 1713 1719 1719 1719 1720 1720 1720 1721

TITLE

The Pleasures of Matrimony

Histories and Novels of Aphra Behn

A Tale of a Tub

The Secret History of Queen Zarah

The True Apparition of One Mrs. Veal

The Scotch Rogue

The New Atalantis

The History of John Bull

The History of the Lives and Robberies of the Most Noted Highway-Men

The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

Love in Excess

The Life, Adventures, and Pyracies of Captain Singleton

The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Richard Falconer

Memoirs of a Cavalier

The Life of Madam de Beaumount

Table 12. New works reprinted at least five times, by type

Entertainment

Entertainment

Entertainment

Entertainment

Entertainment

Entertainment

Purpose

Entertainment

Purpose

Purpose

Entertainment

Purpose

Purpose

Purpose

Entertainment

Entertainment

PURPOSE OR ENTERTAINMENT ?

Travel

Travel

Travel

Crime

Romance

Travel

Religious

Crime

Political

Political

Crime

Religious

Political

Satire

Romance

Romance

CATEGORY

YEAR (1ST ED.)

1722 1722 1722 1723 1723 1724 1724 1724 1724 1724 1724 1726 1726 1726 1726 1727 1728

TITLE

The Noble Slaves

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

The History and Remarkable Life of Colonel Jacque

The Life of Charlotta du Pont

The Injur’d Husband

The Fortunate Mistress [Roxana]

A General History of the Pirates

The Prude

The Reform’d Coquet

The Masqueraders

The Rash Resolve

Travels into Several Remote Nations [Gulliver]

The Voyages of Captain Robert Boyle

The City Jilt

The Distress’d Orphan

The Hermit

Friendship in Death

Table 12. (continued)

Purpose

Purpose

Entertainment

Entertainment

Entertainment

Purpose

Entertainment

Entertainment

Entertainment

Entertainment

Entertainment

Entertainment

Entertainment

Entertainment

Entertainment

Entertainment

Entertainment

PURPOSE OR ENTERTAINMENT ?

Religious

Religious

Romance

Romance

Travel

Satire

Romance

Romance

Romance

Romance

Crime

Crime

Romance

Romance

Crime

Crime

Travel

CATEGORY

uptick in political works in the period 1710–14. Figures 3 and 4 show trends among six categories within the broad division of “purpose” and “entertainment.” Figure 3 vividly depicts the increase in political fiction at the end of Queen Anne’s reign, but this is hardly surprising: there was tremendous factionalism; Britain was fighting a drawn-out war with a number of European powers, especially Spain and France; and Robert Harley rapidly rose and then fell from power. The same chart demonstrates how there was a correlative decrease in satire and religious fiction in the same period— presumably because the demand for fiction had not markedly increased, so the greater number of political fictions took away from the audience for satire and other sorts of fiction. Religious fiction was fairly consistent, with two or three works coming out in each five-year period. Satire had certain upticks, though by comparison to political fiction it was relatively steady, with two to three works for each five-year period. For fiction as entertainment, there are also two subcategories that were stable and one that was more volatile. Travel and crime stories remained consistent, though there was a rise in crime fictions in the period 1720–24, followed by a decrease in these sorts of works. While there was some increase in travel narratives in the 1720s, it was relatively small: a difference of four more works across a five-year period than before, from two works in

Figure 3. Number of works of fiction with purpose, by 5-year increments

Figure 4. Number of works of fiction for entertainment, by 5-year increments Fiction with Purpose · 189

1715–19 to six in 1720–24. This is interesting, however, considering the disproportionate amount of critical attention that has been given to Robinson Crusoe, first published in 1719.1 There are some narratives of seafaring adventure and survival that take up the Crusoe mantle, such as The Adventures, and Surprizing Deliverances, of James Dubourdieu and His Wife (1719), The Voyages, Dangerous Adventures, and Imminent Escapes of Captain Richard Falconer (1720), and The Four Years Voyages of Captain George Roberts (1726). However, the lack of a sharp rise in this sort of fiction following the publication of Crusoe indicates that it was perhaps not as widely imitated as some twentieth-century scholars have assumed—and, as I shall argue below, it lends weight to the idea that Crusoe was seen more as religious fiction than travel adventure in its original context. The greater fluctuations in romantic fiction indicate that this category depended far more on market demands and current interests than travel or crime fictions did. The vast majority of romantic fiction was short-lived: of the seventy-six works I have counted here in that category, only eleven were printed five times or more in the eighteenth century (table 12). A third of the works (25 out of 76) were never reprinted, so we may assume that interest in them was insufficient to justify a second edition. The relatively high number of romantic works in the 1690s reflects amorous tales like those being translated from French and Spanish, and they were frequently set in those countries. Determining whether a work claiming to be “from French” was in fact always English can be difficult if no French version exists. The drop in romantic fiction might reflect a trend against Continental romances at the same time as the turn away from translations from those languages. Interestingly, when romantic works came back into favor in the 1720s, they were similar to the 1690s fictions: mostly short, frequently set in France or Spain, and using the same kinds of plots (star-crossed lovers, love triangles, mistaken identity, seduction and kidnapping, etc.). The rise in new titles in the 1720s indicated revived interest in romantic fiction, but without a demand for innovation—and rather than reprinting the 1690s works, publishers printed new fictions of the same variety. In short, what we see here is increased production across the entire book trade. Fiction remained at less than 1 percent of the total print output, but as time passed, more works were written and translated and added to those already in circulation. Many pre-1690 English works were reprinted during this period, often at regular intervals—so these trends in new English fiction do not represent what might have been available for readers in any 190 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

given year. The History of the Seven Wise Masters, for example, was printed in 1694, 1697, 1700, 1713, and 1717—and its folktale quality and exotic setting does not correspond with any fiction trends. Same with the adventurous Pleasant History of Parismus, printed in 1697, 1699, 1701, 1704, 1713, 1719, and 1724, or the romantic Secret History of Q. Elizabeth and the E. of Essex, printed 1695, 1699, 1705, 1708, 1720, and 1725. We can also assume that works might have sat in bookshops for a long time unsold, and the secondhand market made all sorts of works from different time periods available to readers at once. These shifting trends in English fiction were therefore reflective of what writers were writing and what publishers were willing to produce—not what was available to readers. Still, seeing how certain types of fiction took precedence at different times helps us to begin to make sense of the nearly two hundred new works of fiction in this period.

Are Satire and Allegory Fiction? “Fiction with purpose” presents a definitional problem: at what point, if any, do allegories and satires stop being “fiction”? Some literary historians have drawn distinctions based on traditional canons. For example, Richetti, McKeon, and Warner include The New Atalantis in their surveys of early fiction but omit The History of John Bull. In this, they are following the implicit judgment of their predecessors, including Dobrée and Baker, in considering New Atalantis a work of fiction and John Bull something else. Ultimately, the line between “fiction” and “not fiction” is arbitrary and could be argued in most cases, and much like the split between “The Novel” and “prose fiction,” as I argued in chapter 1, it depends entirely on the definitions provided by individual critics. Both discussions are really only a problem for twentieth- and twenty-first-century scholars and do not seem to have been important to readers and writers in the eighteenth century. What does appear to concern readers of early fiction was the reason why they were reading it—the moral, point, or message of the work, often explained in the preface or at the end of the text. If the purpose of so many of these works of fiction was something other than pure entertainment—if they were meant to convey a message about the real world—then why wrap that message in the guise of fiction? Satire theorists have pointed out the connection between fiction and satire, but they disagree as to whether satire is inherently fictional, opposed to fiction, or both. Fredric V. Bogel, for example, argues that the satiric “voice Fiction with Purpose · 191

is not that of an extratextual author but a particular and highly conventionalized persona, a voice internal to the work”—in other words, a fictional voice.2 David Nokes sees fiction as not only opposite satire, but actively working against it. He goes so far as to say that “the most plausible explanation for the sudden demise of satire [in the mid-eighteenth century] is that it was killed off not by sentiment but by the novel.”3 Charles A. Knight concludes that “satire and the novel are massively overlapping genres,” and even if “satire and the novel are exclusive forms . . . novels are a kind of satire.”4 In short, the consensus seems to be that some novels are satirical, some satires are novelistic, and some works fall into only one category. The difference between these categories, however, remains unclear. The reason critics have had trouble defining the limits of satire and fiction is that both terms refer to a relationship between an imaginative text and the real world, and many critics assume this relationship depends on a realistic representation of the world. Nokes begins from the premise that “unlike the novel which is an autonomous entity, creating and sustaining its own fictional world, satire always has its object and validation in external reality,” but he also assumes that “this distinction between satire and novel may be more apparent than real, since all fictional works necessarily have some implicit relationship with the worlds which they imitate” (2). Knight, similarly, acknowledges that “the actuality of satire and the imagination of the novel play against the exaggeration of the one and the realism of the other” (204). In these views, satire employs the kind of realism found in (some) works of fiction in order to amplify certain elements to make a particular point, while keeping the rest of the imaginative world plausible. The reliance on realism is the underlying assumption behind Paulson’s point that “the satirist within the satire must be accepted as a real man in relation to other real men” and Dustin Griffin’s argument that “satires that transcend their immediate occasion and circumstances are judged by most readers to be of greater value than those that remain topical and occasional.”5 Along this line of thinking, for satires to make a point about the real world, they must present a recognizable version of reality. These views about the primacy of realism make perfect sense for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but as I have argued, readers and writers of fiction in the early eighteenth century did not value realism as highly as recent scholars do. Readers seem to have had a great deal of patience with, and interest in, works that are highly unrealistic—from the stylized

192 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

Arcadian landscapes of “romances,” to repetitive chronicles of the lives of kings and queens, real or fake, to animal tales and fables of all varieties. They did value truth in fiction, and many works of fiction make claims to truth, but this can mean moral truth rather than an accurate representation of real people and events. One reason to use fiction to convey an exterior point is that didacticism or satire in fiction appeals to readers interested in both types of writing individually, broadening the potential audience for the work. Satirical works make their points more effectively than would be done if the message were stated directly because the reader becomes a participant in the moral. In didactic works, the reader is often told what lesson to draw: for example, the main title of The Irish Princess (1693) is “Vertue Rewarded,” and The Surprize (1724) is subtitled “Constancy Rewarded.” Some works like The Young Man’s Guide to a Vertuous Life (1698) even have morals after each short tale to help the reader apply the lesson of the story, making one-to-one correlations between characters in the story and real-life people or situations. The preface to Nine Pious Pilgrims is even more direct, stating that “This pious Pilgrimage, if rightly interpreted, directs to the Centre of a Holy Life.”6 Such explicit morals are not necessary for the plot, but they make the fiction more acceptable to readers seeking instruction, and the lesson more palatable for readers looking only for entertainment. A key difference between fiction with purpose and nonfictional didactic works is that fiction can convey multiple messages simultaneously, even if they contradict each other or are meant for different audiences. The same text might be read as a harsh condemnation of human nature, instigation for social reform, or a celebration of modern civilization—since meaning depends on interpretation of fictional events, readers can hold entirely different opinions about the same work. This has especially been noted in Gulliver’s Travels, where, as Claude Rawson points out, “readers are caught up in an unresolved contradiction, projecting an either-way-you-lose atmosphere.”7 Ashley Marshall sums up the trouble critics have had with Swift’s work: “Gulliver’s Travels does not have a single target or set of targets, and neither are most of its particular targets indisputably clear.”8 Satiric fiction only has meaning in the real world if readers interpret it in a particular way, but readers approach fiction from different perspectives. Didactic works provide instruction through examples, rather than speaking directly to the reader as an essay or sermon might. By leaving room for interpretation, such

Fiction with Purpose · 193

works encourage the reader to fill in details relevant to his or her own life or experience, enabling active, participatory reading rather than passive observation. Finally, a practical reason for using fiction is that it lessens the risk for the writer. This is fairly obvious for political satire or scandal narratives, where the writer could be prosecuted if he or she wrote openly, but it is also true for more oblique satire. Even in highly specific satire, not all readers understand the references: as Griffin points out, “The reader, even while encouraged to supply a real name, is uncertain whether the name refers to a type or an individual” (122). This is why Bogel distinguishes between formalist approaches, which determine targets within the satire, and historicist approaches, which deduce what those targets might parallel in real history (8–9). Allegory and satire can be read on two planes, and the formalist and historicist readings are often different. All this is to say that satire, allegory, and fiction share certain qualities in the way they navigate a relationship between the real world and an imaginary realm. Fiction with purpose, as I am calling it here, refers to a specific category of fiction that makes explicit its relationship to the real world, either by criticizing it, paralleling it, instructing readers to change it or themselves, or some combination of the three. The concept of fiction having a purpose helps justify the reading of fiction, but it also exposes the work as being fictional, since the reader has to make an imaginative jump from the fiction to the real world. We might prioritize realism and value those works that most closely resemble real life, but eighteenth-century readers and writers do not appear to have shared that opinion. To understand the fiction they were reading and the types of lessons they were interested in learning from it, we have to set aside our preference for realism over message.

Political and Topical Fiction Political and topical fiction, by its nature, has a relatively short period of relevancy: once the immediate political contexts are history rather than news, the appeal of reading a scandalous account of real life cloaked in fiction disappears. Unsurprisingly, most works of fiction published 1690–1730 that paralleled or commented on real events were only reprinted once, if at all, in the year of their original publication. What made the long-lasting works of this type different from the rest? The two most successful works of political fiction from the first few decades of the eighteenth century, The 194 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

New Atalantis (1709) and The History of John Bull (1712), succeeded in transcending their original political contexts by commenting on systemic problems with the court and government, not just individual people. The New Atalantis in particular was widely imitated, but none of the imitations had as general an appeal as the original work did because none managed to balance both specific satire and entertaining narrative. John Bull is frequently left out of discussions of fiction since it was printed as a series of pamphlets without a clear overarching plot. However, the fact that it was reprinted even after the War of the Spanish Succession ended in 1714 shows that readers were interested in its fictional qualities, not just its cynical portrayal of the British government’s approach to war. I argue here that The New Atalantis and John Bull employed fiction to make both general and specific criticisms of people and policies related to the government— enabling them to interest readers who approached them as fiction as well as readers interested in political critique. Secret histories and political scandal narratives have often been marginalized in histories of the novel because they seem quite different from works like Robinson Crusoe or Pamela. Baker is typical in his dismissive comment of The New Atalantis that “Mrs. Manley did not waste her time in devising any artistic form for her pretended revelations” (111). Secret histories like The New Atalantis are too truthful to be fully considered fiction, yet too fanciful to be treated as history. Baker seems to feel that by straddling two opposing genres, secret histories fail at both. Davis argues that “these works participated in both the factual and fictional components of the news / novels discourse” (114). Yet some more recent critics have pointed out that the apparent failure of secret histories can be remedied by considering them as a separate genre that is neither “novel” nor “history,” but something else altogether. Kate Loveman rightly points out that “according to modern concepts of genre, (factual) testimony and (fictional) novels should be placed towards opposite ends of a literary spectrum and, indeed, are the province of separate academic disciplines; yet these conceptions prove inadequate for understanding the literature of the seventeenth century and the responses of its readers.”9 Readers of political fictions in the early eighteenth century were apparently perfectly comfortable with the way they were simultaneously stand-alone works of entertaining fiction and deeply referential, often very detailed exposés of actual political corruption and intrigue. Not all secret histories from this period are the same, however, and there was a definite change around the year 1700. Melinda Alliker Rabb treats the Fiction with Purpose · 195

works from the period 1690–1714 as though they appeared simultaneously, but this overlooks a change in content and the level of knowledge readers would need to appreciate secret histories published in the first two decades of the eighteenth century.10 Only Eve Tavor Bannet acknowledges that “initially, secret histories were most frequently narratives about corruption in the Stuart or French courts . . . . From the turn of the eighteenth century, readers were increasingly presented with secret histories of government and of the political elite.”11 Why might this be? Given the dependence of secret histories on their immediate contexts, we might look for changes in politics or an increase in fiction production that expanded the range of imaginative works. Yet neither of these reasons fully explains the switch from secret histories focusing on scandals of the past to political and topical fictions exposing the corruption of the present. One significant change in the contexts in which secret histories were originally read was the advent of daily newspapers, which had a profound and immediate effect on the information about current events available to readers. Prior to the start of the Daily Courant in 1702, news was irregularly distributed through news sheets, which could be days or weeks behind and which jumbled together in a single column reports of battles on the Continent, gossip about nobility at home and abroad, business and trade information, advertisements, and death notices.12 The most regular of these, the London Gazette, came out two to three times a week but primarily reported foreign news; English events were usually confined to half a column on the back page. Even readers who sought out current news would have had a hard time learning about events or people of interest. The secret histories of this period, consequently, reflect a more general interest in monarchs and nobility, both past and present: works like The Secret History of the Duke of Alançon and Queen Elizabeth (1691) and The True Secret History of the Lives and Reigns of all the Kings and Queens of England (1702) told scandalous tales of long-dead monarchs, while narratives like The Secret History of the Dutchess of Portsmouth (1690) and The French King Proved a Bastard (1691) appealed to anti-French feeling and required only the most general knowledge of Louis XIV’s reputation for womanizing to make sense. Other works, like Pix’s The Inhumane Cardinal (1696) or the anonymous Woman’s Malice, A Novel (1699), employed the trappings of secret histories but made only the vaguest reference to reality. Readers of these works in the 1690s were apparently not expected to identify the actual people behind the char-

196 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

acters, and the narratives focus on sexual rather than political scandal, distancing the characters from any real-life counterparts they might have. After 1702, however, there was a marked increase in the level of political scandal in fiction, and more detailed representation of real politicians, monarchs, and courtiers. Works like The Secret History of Queen Zarah and the Zarazians (1705), The Devil of a Whigg (1708), and The Glorious Life and Actions of St. Whigg (1708) reported with considerable detail the political intrigues of Sarah Churchill (Duchess of Marlborough), Sidney Godolphin, Abigail Masham, Robert Harley, and Queen Anne. Many political secret histories depended on the reader’s identifying the real people behind the fiction. The Impartial Secret History of Arlus, Fortunatus, and Odolphus (1710), The Secret History of the October Club (1711), and The History of Prince Mirabel’s Infancy, Rise, and Disgrace (1712) have poor plots and little character description or attention to other narrative elements that might interest readers besides the political critique. These three works were all reprinted at least once in the year of their first publication, but not again after. Clearly, the relevance of the political scandal is the chief point of interest in many of these secret histories, and they require readers to know current events and care about political as well as sexual scandal. Even for those works that included a printed key identifying the real people behind the fiction, the scandal would have little appeal unless readers were familiar with the politicians and courtiers involved. The New Atalantis (1709)

The work that was most successful in blending the sexual scandal of the 1690s secret histories with the political intrigue of those from the following decade is The New Atalantis. This work generated more interest from its first publication than any previous political fiction, enough so that twelve printings of it were required in its first year. Rabb points out, rightly, that it “was the most popular satire of the first quarter of the eighteenth century” (12). There are a number of imitations or other works invoking its title printed in the decade after its first publication.13 Even more surprising than its initial success was the fact that it was reprinted in 1716, 1720, and 1741. While the original burst of popularity in 1709 might have been on account of the immediate relevancy of the political scandal, the later reprintings demonstrate that readers bought it long after the events described in the

Fiction with Purpose · 197

text. Richetti hints at this when he writes that “Lady Mary [Montagu]’s enthusiasm makes it quite clear that the great success which the New Atalantis enjoyed cannot simply be explained by its political purpose.”14 Montagu is just one reader of The New Atalantis, and there must have been many others who shared her opinion of its merits. Cheryl Turner goes further than Richetti when she comments that the reprinting of Manley’s work “suggests that her skill lay in depicting a world of corruption that had a sustainable imaginative as well as satirical dimension.”15 Yet the work is clearly satirical, even if the more immediate political parallels are in the past—so readers of later printings of The New Atalantis must have found something significant in both the satirical and the fictional elements. Broadly speaking, there are four main ways of reading The New Atalantis, depending on how much one reads it alongside the original political context: as a roman à clef about individual people; as a satire on political parties; as a satire about corruption more generally; and as an entertaining work of narrative fiction. I would argue that the high number of printings both in its first year and later indicates that The New Atalantis, unlike other political satires, succeeds in all four approaches to its satirical content, allowing it to appeal to different audiences. As a key novel, The New Atalantis makes a great deal of sense: the main characters have clear parallels to people in real life, including monarchs from James I to Queen Anne and their families, the Earl of Portland, the Duke of Ormond, Sarah Churchill, and even the author’s husband, John Manley. Their scheming and sexual liaisons frequently parallel known events, such as the Restoration (figured at the beginning of part 2). As early as 1709, the book included a key to help readers identify real-life parallels with great exactitude.16 Many critics read the work as a key novel. Ballaster and Rebecca Bullard certainly do, though Bullard concedes that the real-life parallels “are much more diverse and numerous than those found in other roman à clef style secret histories,” so that readers have to know a lot about current politics to decipher the text.17 One result of reading The New Atalantis as a key novel is that the reader is inclined to believe that everything in the text corresponds to an incident in real life. Many events in the narrative, however, cannot be verified: the seduction of Charlot by her guardian is certainly a possible explanation of the relationship between Stuarta Howard and the Duke of Portland, but we have no way of knowing how close to the truth it might be. Rachel Carnell, in the notes to her modern edition of The New Atalantis, explains that “Stuarta may well have gone to live with Portland and his first wife, Anne 198 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

Villiers (sister of James Howard), who was Stuarta Howard’s aunt. When Anne died in 1688, Stuarta, who would probably have been about twenty years old, may have stayed on in the household and may have attracted the attentions of the widowed Portland, who was then about forty.”18 None of this can be proven, however possible it might be; Carnell cannot even confirm Stuarta’s age at the time of Portland’s wife’s death. Kathryn Temple points out that “in part secret history encapsulated the battle between fictionality and the real by suggesting fantastic scenarios (some true) involving biographical figures.”19 I would take this further to say that in The New Atalantis, the issue at stake is the plausibility of the events described, not their reality. By giving some accurate details, and enough information to identify characters as particular people, Manley implies the rest is true as well. Reading The New Atalantis as a satire primarily on political parties, not on individuals, means that even the events and scenes that have no clear correlation in real life can be taken as political criticism. Carole Fungaroli Sargent, writing of the scene in which a priest’s wife throws a hot apple pie on him during a domestic fight, comments that “certain problems complicate any biographical reading of the pie fight itself. . . . Indeed, it probably never happened.” Instead, she argues that “politically aware readers would have further recognized Manley’s scene as a burlesque metaphor of the war between Whigs and Tories in Queen Anne’s court.”20 Sargent makes a compelling case for her reading by showing how apple pie was used metaphorically in several pamphlets from the period that are more obviously political. Other scholars have started from the assumption that Manley is taking a party stance. Bullard, for example, contrasts her with “Whig secret historians,” and Warner goes so far as to argue that “Manley’s central Tory political allegory is woven by aligning Whig leaders with the schemer of the novel of amorous intrigue, and the English people with the innocent victims these voracious men and women seduce and destroy.”21 Carnell discusses Manley’s “Tory secret history” at length.22 Reading The New Atalantis as a partisan satire certainly makes sense given Manley’s known Tory sympathies, and it can help to explain incidents that do not have any clearly identifiable real-life parallels. This interpretation requires, however, that readers understand The New Atalantis as a key novel as well as a political satire: one has to associate various characters and incidents with real-life people. Readers would not see the work as attacking Whigs unless they understood that seducers and criminals in the story are meant to indicate prominent Whig politicians and courtiers. The political reading, therefore, necessitates that Fiction with Purpose · 199

readers have even more external knowledge of current events, since they must not only identify the real people referred to in the fiction but also know their political stances. Even readers without this external knowledge of party politics could still see that The New Atalantis is a satire on the corruption of power. Whether this power is sexual or political, however, depends on the individual anecdotes, and the morals are sometimes disturbingly in support of the abuse of power. In the section about Charlot, for example, her guardian, the Duke, purposely corrupts her with books about love and expensive jewels, then finally he startles her and “whilst yet her surprise made her doubtful of his designs, he took advantage of her confusion to accomplish ’em; neither her prayers, tears, nor struglings, cou’d prevent him” (48). He eventually marries a wealthy countess, and as for Charlot, “The remainder of her Life was one continu’d Scene of Horror, Sorrow, and Repentance: She dy’d a true Landmark: to warn all believing Virgins from shipwracking their Honour upon (that dangerous Coast of Rocks) the Vows and pretended passion of Mankind” (54). A second moral warns women not to introduce other women to their male lovers. In this case, although the Duke rapes Charlot after using her trust in him as her guardian to corrupt her mind, the morals provided by both the events in the story (Charlot’s lonely death) and the narrative voice all blame Charlot for her own downfall. Bradford K. Mudge is referring to seduction scenes like this one when he argues that a main lesson of The New Atalantis is that “blind faith is simply no protection against avarice, jealousy, and spite.”23 Innocence is not only no defense against crime, it is dangerous for people who live in a corrupt world. The conclusion here is that Charlot should have been more wary of the Duke’s ulterior motives and guarded against them—not that she was a hapless victim. A number of critics have viewed the sexual scandal in The New Atalantis as akin to political corruption, but there is no clear sense that corrupt power is bad. Todd, for example, explains that “in Manley’s works, the driving force of humanity is desire—both for money and sex, which become interchangeable.”24 This makes sense when one considers that any titillation to be gained from reading about seduction is tempered by the fact that the characters in The New Atalantis who have illicit sex often regret it or are punished. Spencer points to this paradox when she comments that “though later readers found the book infamously immoral because it depicted sexual encounters, many of its episodes laid emphasis on female innocence and chastity.”25 While modern critics might be tempted to read Manley’s work 200 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

as a feminist assertion of female sexuality, the fact that so many of the female characters only have sex as victims of seduction, deceit, or attack, and that they are often then punished for it, makes The New Atalantis seem more against sexual freedom than for it. Regardless of how readers interpreted the satire, The New Atalantis was different from other works of political or topical fiction in that it provided a wide variety of stories within a narrative framework. Besides seduction stories like that of Charlot and the Duke, there are anecdotes about crime (one woman murders her illegitimate child), divine vengeance (as follows the adulterous Mosco and his mistress Zara), and the usurpation of power (a tale of two princesses reminiscent of the Glorious Revolution).26 There is no overarching plot: Astrea comes down from the stars to learn more about the world so she can teach a young prince of her world to avoid temptation and danger. She is guided by Virtue and Intelligence from one scene to the next, but there is very little action in their level of the narrative other than commentary on the anecdotes they hear, and there is no conclusion to the frame—the work simply stops. As Rabb points out, “Characters rarely act directly for the reader; rather the reader joins Astrea and Virtue in listening to Intelligence telling on others” (121). Just as Astrea and Virtue pass judgment on the stories, so too the reader is encouraged to draw moral lessons from them. Richetti argues that The New Atalantis, along with Robinson Crusoe, had universal appeal because the elaborateness of its fictional details make it readable on its own, without external knowledge of the political referents: “both resolve themselves into pictures of the embattled individual in a hostile and vicious world.”27 This is a very general satirical point, but the text completely supports such a reading. The success of The New Atalantis and its long-lasting appeal after its initial publication can be attributed to its fictional details and its broad critique of corrupt power, making it a more interesting read than many other topical fictions even without the immediate political context. The History of John Bull (1712)

The New Atalantis, with its tales of seduction and romance, might have been exciting even for readers not well informed about current politics, but the same cannot be said for The History of John Bull. John Bull did, however, achieve success similar to that of The New Atalantis, generating four subsequent parts and many reprints. What might account for the interest in Fiction with Purpose · 201

John Bull? One key difference between John Bull and many other works is its short length: at just twenty-four pages, the first, second, and fourth parts sold for 3d apiece—accessible to the lowest economic levels of the fiction market. The third and fifth parts were twice as long and sold for 6d each, so the whole five parts together cost 1s 9d (which is in the middle of the price range for works of fiction).28 Arbuthnot appealed to this wide audience by using motifs from the cheaply available fables, rather than more elite seduction narratives or stories of love at court.29 Unlike more specific satires that refer to the actions of individual politicians and courtiers, John Bull’s characters correlate to groups of people or institutions, such as the English people ( John Bull), the Church of England (Bull’s mother), or the Dutch people (Nicholas Frog). Parallels to individuals are nearly all to the most famous rulers, including Charles II (Lord Strutt), Louis XIV (Lewis Baboon), and Robert Harley (Sir Roger Bold). The point of the satire is to comment on well-known public events, such as the War of the Spanish Succession, not to expose sexual intrigues and closed-door dealings, so readers with only a very general sense of the news would be able to catch on to the allegorical representation of current events. One difficulty with reading the John Bull pamphlets as narrative fiction, and likely the reason that they are generally left out of histories of “the novel,” is that they do not clearly form a continuous narrative. Alan W. Bower and Robert A. Erickson state in their introduction to the standard edition of John Bull that “any attempt to give the pamphlets coherence within a subdivided or chronological format would have involved a complete reworking of the text.”30 This is true in regard to the particulars, but in broad terms, they do make sense as a single narrative. In the first part, John Bull and Nicholas Frog sue Lewis Baboon over the right to supply the deceased Lord Strutt’s estate with trade. Bull finds out that his wife was unfaithful, but when she dies he marries again. Part 2 takes up where the first left off: John discovers more details about his first wife’s affairs, Nicholas warns Lewis not to treat with John, and the guardians of John’s three daughters ask John to desist from the lawsuit. The third part describes several events that are outside the lawsuit, including friction between John’s mother and his sister Peg, his reconciliation with Peg, and a conflict with Nicholas. An “appendix” (the fourth part published) fills in a digression from part 3 about a man who was accused of poisoning and tricked into hanging himself. In the final part, called the fourth but in fact the fifth published, John and Nicholas settle their accounts, Lewis apologizes and agrees 202 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

to return Ecclesdown Castle to John and his family, and John ends up very happy. While some story elements are not clearly placed in a chronological sequence with the rest—some events of part 3 take place before the lawsuit, and the appendix is set some time in the past—the whole is held together by the ongoing lawsuit as it progresses from the initial conflict, to stalemate, and finally to resolution. Other Topical Fiction

Among the other political or topical fictions, The Golden Spy (1709) stands out from the rest, but it never achieved the same degree of popularity as The New Atalantis and John Bull. Subtitled “A Political Journal of the British Nights Entertainments of War and Peace, and Love and Politics,” The Golden Spy is narrated by gold coins of various currencies. The tales mainly target people whose sins involve money, such as misers, gamblers, thieves, and prostitutes, and a number of tales portray the clergy and politicians as being particularly greedy. Many of the stories are accompanied by an explicit message: in the first tale, about a married woman who has two lovers, the coin explains, “You may likewise learn this Moral from it, That Unlawful Love is generally attended with Infamy and Ruin” (27). Those stories that take aim at the clergy frequently specify the Catholic Church. This happens, for example, when a Roman coin comments that “Gold is more brought to Rome, than from thence” and that “most of the Prelates of Rome oblige the ambitious Ladies” (42, 50). Unlike The New Atalantis, however, the stories in The Golden Spy do not correspond to people and events in real life—the few people mentioned are long dead, like the fourteenth-century monarch Edward III (79). There would be little more excitement in reading about his amorous affairs than those of a fictional character. Most of the satirical targets are groups of people, like money hoarders, French courtiers, or Catholic priests—but unlike John Bull, the morals are vague and might be applied to anyone from these groups in any time period. The Golden Spy is well written and moves along at a fast pace, but it does not have the immediate relevance of a more direct political satire. Most of the other works that were not reprinted are fairly forgettable; they are generally either too specific in their satire to make for an interesting fictional narrative, or too general to make effective political points. While not necessarily badly written, they are often very dense and require the reader to pay close attention to follow the workings of the plot, or else Fiction with Purpose · 203

so simple that they seem much too long-winded for the content provided. Several works are effective satires but target people from the past, and so lose their poignancy. The True Secret History of the Lives and Reigns of all the Kings and Queens of England, for example, begins with William the Conqueror and goes through Charles I, who had been dead for half a century when the book was published (despite claims in the preface that the work goes up “to this Present Year 1702”).31 The few bits of exciting intrigue are buried under many tedious facts. Although the preface claims it is derived from “Secret Memoirs now in the Hands of some Persons of Quality,” the text itself sticks rather closely to known facts (sig. A2r). The writer inserts dialogue in the mouths of historical characters, and so is evidently trying to employ techniques of fiction, but the whole reads more like lively narrative history than secret revelations or parallels to current politics. The length and cost of this work certainly did not help to increase its audience. At more than four hundred pages, the 1725 edition sold for 8s—a price very few customers could or would pay for a single work.32 Some of the political or topical works that did not achieve lasting success are so vague about their intended targets that they are totally ineffective as satire. Woman’s Malice, A Novel (1699) states on the title page that it is “A True History of the Amours of an Eminent Person of Quality,” but there is no indication as to whom that might be.33 The first page of the text sets it “In the peaceful and flourishing Reign of Charles the Second,” but that is the only hint of a real-life parallel (1). The love triangle plot is simple and of a type frequently found in fiction of the period: Dolosa loves Rodalus, who loves Selinda. In the end, Dolosa fails to win over Rodalus and drowns in a shipwreck, while Rodalus marries Selinda. If there is a real-life parallel to this story, it would not be apparent to most readers. Many of the works of fiction that were not reprinted more than once or twice do not have cohesive plots, individualized characters, or other features that would make them interesting fiction, and so they are simply not appealing without the immediacy of the political context. These are mostly short and inexpensive (costing 1s or less) and provide direct parallels to real life by the creation of fantastical worlds. Little attention is spent, however, on making these worlds seem realistic or vivid in their own right, since they serve only to mask a critique of English politics. This is the case with the two works about the “Britomartian Empire,” the tale of a voyage to “the Island of Fools” where the “Stultitians” live, the secret history of the land of “Grand-Insula,” and the two works about the town of “Fickleborough, 204 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

In the Kingdom of Fairy-land.”34 Some writers of political fictions use real places like Persia or Etruria as the setting, though they very clearly mean Britain.35 For a few works of fiction, the writers do not employ an alternate setting, but instead use false names to hide the political message.36 In all of these cases, however, the political commentary takes such precedence over the fiction that the work is only interesting insofar as it comments on current events. The fact that many of the secret histories and political fictions are published in the period 1710–14 is no accident: they comment directly on the political upheaval at the end of Queen Anne’s reign. An exception to this trend is Memoirs of a Certain Island Adjacent to the Kingdom of Utopia (1725), which follows the format of The New Atalantis very closely, employing romance motifs and plots for stories reflecting on real people (identified by the appended key). Unfortunately for Memoirs of a Certain Island, by the 1720s the vogue for key novels on the New Atalantis model seems to have passed, and while it was printed twice the following year, it did not go into any subsequent editions in London.37 Roughly speaking, there are three main types of topical or political fiction in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries: those that provide scandalous or titillating court tales, often about past rulers like Queen Elizabeth; “key novels” that provide detailed criticism or exposure of scandal by creating an alternate world; and shorter pamphlets commenting on specific politicians or events. The great majority of topical fictions provide either obscure or obvious political commentary through a hastily constructed narrative, so without the immediate political context the fiction is not much worth reading. Only the works like New Atalantis and John Bull that managed to interweave both specific and general satire proved compelling enough to outlast their original contexts.

Moral and Social Satire Of the eighteen works of fiction that target moral or social issues, two stand out from the rest for having truly exceptional success in their own time as well as a long-lasting influence on how later scholars understand fiction of the eighteenth century: Swift’s A Tale of a Tub (1704) and Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World (1726). Although both are over three hundred pages, these two works were reprinted regularly from their initial publication to the end of the century. By contrast, other works of satire aimed at social or moral problems, such as Thomas Brown’s Letters from the Fiction with Purpose · 205

Dead to the Living (1702) and The Consolidator (1705), were not reprinted more than once or twice after their initial publication. What made Swift’s satirical narratives so much more successful? I would argue that one key difference between Swift’s two works and others with similar aims and targets is his combination of innovative fictional characters and situations with comprehensive satire that has many targets, both particular and general. Swift’s works are both complex and accessible—making them interesting to readers with different levels of knowledge and reading ability. Moreover, both narratives are extremely timely in riding the crests of two different fiction trends. A Tale of a Tub exemplifies the blend of roman à clef and political fiction found in the first decade of the eighteenth century with New Atalantis, John Bull, and others, while Gulliver’s Travels has motifs of adventure narrative and seafaring exploration that were in vogue in the 1720s. Where Swift really succeeds with these two narratives is in employing the trappings of other types of fiction for his own purposes to capitalize on what was popular at the time he published each work. A Tale of a Tub went into four editions within a year of its publication in 1704 and was reprinted every few years through the end of the eighteenth century. Marcus Walsh, editor of the standard edition of A Tale of a Tub, accounts for its initial success by analyzing the controversy it generated: “The earliest responders usually noted the Tale’s wit, and sometimes allowed for its irony, but (often led by considerations of party or religion) variously deplored what they understood as the crudeness, the blasphemy, the freethinking, or the Tory politics of the anonymously published work.”38 There was speculation as to the identity of its author, and we can assume that the attacks and other responses led some readers to the Tale who otherwise would not have read it. This is the more likely as some of the works that made use of the title by claiming to be “by the Author of A Tale of a Tub” were not similar to the original in narrative technique, form, or satiric method. Readers who never read fiction or satiric prose but did read poetry could be led to Swift’s work through the poem The Fairy Feast (1704), for example, while readers of nonfictional essays might look for it because of Liberty of Conscience (1704).39 Both mention A Tale of a Tub on their title pages, presumably to latch onto the sales appeal of the more famous work. The plot of A Tale of a Tub is famously digressive and inconclusive. In general terms, it tells the story of three brothers (Peter, Martin, and Jack) who are each given a coat when their father dies. They soon ignore the terms of the will, which instructed them not to change the coats, and begin add206 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

ing shoulder-knots, lace, embroidery, and other ornaments. Peter befriends a lord and inherits his house, then puts on airs to his brothers, to the point where he calls himself “God Almighty” (73). Eventually, Martin and Jack read the will themselves, “by which they presently saw how grossly they had been abused,” so they leave Peter’s house and tear off the ornaments from their coats so they no longer resemble him (87). The narrative stops without any conclusion to the plot. As a work of fiction, this general story is not very interesting. It begins with a fairy-tale structure, opening the narrative portion with the phrase “Once upon a Time,” but there is no problem or resolution (47). None of the brothers are rewarded or punished, so there is no moral to be derived from their behavior. Nor is there much attention to the characters as individuals; the narrator does not even give Martin and Jack names until section 6, more than halfway through A Tale. What makes A Tale noteworthy, and lends interest to the otherwise rather poor narrative, is its brilliant self-parody and its combination of specific and general satire. The parody begins in the prefatory material, which exposes the preposterousness of many dedications and prefaces even while providing examples of them. In the dedication, to Lord John Somers, Swift explains that his first strategy was to go “on in the usual Method, to peruse a hundred or two of Dedications, and transcribe an Abstract, to be applied to your Lordship”—criticizing the fact that most dedications are pro forma and very similar to each other (16). He then provides an example of this type of dedication in his epistle to “Prince Posterity,” which begins, “I here present Your Highness with the Fruits of a very few leisure Hours, stolen from the short Intervals of a World of Business, and of an Employment quite alien from such Amusements as this” (20). Swift critiques the lack of real thought behind dedications by exaggerating some of their common conceits. A similar pattern of critique followed by an example of the problem is found in a section later called “A Digression in Praise of Digressions,” about modern writers who puff out their writing with ill-informed or pseudo-scholarly digressions (95). This is followed by a long digression on the habits of the “Æolists,” a supposedly ancient and learned sect, which is only connected back to the plot several pages later with a passing reference to Jack’s connection with the Æolists (99). While the section on digressions is straightforwardly critical, the section on the Æolists parodies exactly the kind of digressions that the narrator was criticizing in order to exemplify their problems. The variety of satiric targets in A Tale may also account for its continFiction with Purpose · 207

ual success, since it has some topical appeal but is also aimed broadly at social, moral, and political problems. Published in 1704, it comes at the beginning of an upward spike in the number of works of political fiction and at the height of the roman à clef fashion of the first decade of the eighteenth century. A Tale targets particular people, social groups, professions, government institutions, and, most of all, religious groups. In this, A Tale is more successful in generating continual interest as a satiric work than either New Atalantis or John Bull, both of which focus primarily on particular problems of their immediate political and social contexts and became less relevant over time. Swift defends his satiric strategy in the preface to A Tale, explaining that “Satyr being levelled at all, is never resented for an offence by any, since every individual Person makes bold to understand it of others,” and so “whoever, I say, should venture to be thus particular [as to target individuals], must expect to be imprisoned for Scandalum Magnatum” (31–32). In other words, satire that targets general groups does not anger individual people, since they never feel that it applies to themselves, while satire on particular, identifiable people—as was done in New Atalantis and other roman à clef fictions—can incite charges of libel and other repercussions on the author. Yet in this, as with much of the preface, we cannot take Swift entirely at face value. A Tale does contain satire aimed at individuals, including “Our famous Dryden” (45). Still, most of the targets are general, taking aim at literature, wits, authors, booksellers, scholars, and hack writers, among others. A Tale also satirizes abstract values to point out the degeneration of society, as when the narrator comments that “Wisdom is a Fox, who after long hunting, will at last cost you the Pains to dig out,” which the narrator implies is too much trouble for the “many Readers of the present Age, who will by no means be persuaded to inspect beyond the Surface and the Rind of Things” (41). Such broad criticisms of the state of society might apply long after the more direct targets are less relevant. One way A Tale of a Tub succeeds despite its very disparate satiric aims is that it weaves together narrative and satire and intermingles different levels of meaning until they do not seem distinct. Where New Atalantis rather clumsily alternates fiction that parallels real life with reflections from Astrea and Intelligence identifying morals, A Tale of a Tub presents abstract moral reflections alongside narrative, mixing them together so that they appear to be part of the same level of narrative. This happens frequently in small ways: for example, near the end of A Tale, Jack bangs his nose and comments, “It 208 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

was ordained some few Days before the Creation, that my Nose and this very Post should have a Rencounter” (125). He is here bringing predestination, a part of the religious debates occupying the secondary (allegorical) level of meaning, into the primary (literal) realm of the narrative. When taken to extremes, the mixing of narrative levels can create reflexive description that defies interpretation. For example, in the beginning of section 2, there are two narrative levels: first, a tale about three brothers receiving coats from their father, and second, an allegorical representation of what would become different branches of the Church receiving the same scripture. Religion, in the allegory, is symbolized by clothing. We are told that “about this Time it happened a Sect arose” that “worshipped a kind of Idol” (48–49). This introduces religious sects into the first level of narrative (the tale of the three brothers). But then Swift informs us that “The chief Idol was also worshipped as the Inventor of the Yard and the Needle,” connecting back to the link between clothing and religion (49). In this circular way, the narrator presents three brothers whose coats represent religion in a secondary (allegorical) level of meaning, and who live in a world where the religion literally is a worship of clothing. This is further complicated by the comment in the following paragraph that followers of this sect “held the Universe to be a large Suit of Clothes” (49). The followers of the sect that worships tailors, therefore, allegorize the universe as clothing. Circular and repeated representations like this—coats are allegories of religion, religion worships coats, the universe is a coat—intermingle the levels of narration. The reader of A Tale can no more distinguish the literal narrative of the three brothers from the seemingly real-world reflections on hack writers than he or she can disentangle the literal from the allegorical meanings. The “Apology” added later to A Tale of a Tub (dated 1709) gives some indication of how readers reacted to the work originally. Considering the ironic tone of the entire work, and especially the front matter, however, we should not be too eager to take the “Apology” as a key to Swift’s intentions. As Judith C. Mueller argues, “When read in the contexts of other, comparable works in the period, the ‘Apology’ proves to be, in fact, a highly rhetorical and ironic piece—a parody of similar apologies.”40 Still, it shows what the original objections might have been. There were also a number of imitations or responses to A Tale that more or less follow the format of the original, often providing radically opposite messages or expanding the targets of the original.41 One point made very plainly in the “Apology” is that A Tale is meant to Fiction with Purpose · 209

be read on two levels: “The Abuses in Religion he proposed to set forth in the Allegory of the Coats, and the three Brothers” (5). According to this, the chief target of the satire is the abuses of the clergy and the churches. As Swift explains two paragraphs later, “Why should any Clergyman of our Church be angry to see the Follies of Fanaticism and Superstition exposed, tho’ in the most ridiculous Manner? since that is perhaps the most probable way to cure them, or at least to hinder them from farther spreading” (6). We can deduce from this that clergymen must have objected to A Tale, and that the reason for writing it in the first place was to effect change in the real world. Despite the inconclusive ending of the story, without any explicit moral or point, it is meant to spur the targets to change their ways.42 These contradictions and the satirical targets lend credence to assertions that there were difficulties publishing the work which may have increased its appeal for readers intrigued more by scandal than church abuses. Walsh cautions that such claims “are less likely to be reliable truths than elements in the theatre of obfuscation with which Swift surrounded the Tale” (xxxii). Still, they influence how readers of the 1710 edition would have received and understood the work. The Apology insists on the author’s remaining anonymous even though Swift’s identity was not a secret. It also explains that the work was censored and that “a third Hand” had unsuccessfully attempted to get the bookseller to have the author censor the work even further (8, 13). A note from “the Bookseller to the Reader” declares, “As to the Author . . . I am credibly informed that this Publication is without his Knowledge” (19). This might be entirely false and inserted to add to the confusion already generated by A Tale; it might be a parody of similar declarations explaining how scandalous works came to be printed; it might simply be a way for Swift to protect himself from personal attacks. Whatever the truth behind these explanations, they add to the intrigue surrounding the work and appeal to readers who might otherwise not be interested in either fiction or criticism of the Church. Much as A Tale of a Tub uses allegory and the trappings of roman à clef to convey its satire, Swift’s later work, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, uses the conventions of travel literature to criticize social depravity, church and government abuses, and erudition. The connections between Gulliver’s Travels and the travel literature tradition have been explored in a classic article by Arthur Sherbo.43 I would add to Sherbo’s analysis that the fiction contexts for Gulliver’s Travels enhance the reading of the work as a new type of travel narrative. The ostensibly objective narrator, the accounts 210 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

of lands visited and the social, political, and religious lives of their inhabitants, and the encapsulating of the plot between descriptions of the world before the narrator leaves and after he returns are all found in conventional travel narratives. While there is some direct criticism of England in comparison with the societies Gulliver encounters (particularly in part 4, his voyage to the Houyhnhnms), most of the satirical import of the work is indirect and left entirely up to the reader to identify parallels and critique. Gulliver claims only “to inform and instruct mankind,” not to criticize or correct it, so his satire is far less pointed than that found in works like A Tale of a Tub and The New Atalantis. Gulliver’s Travels does not have a single cohesive storyline, but instead falls into four distinct parts loosely connected by brief interludes when Gulliver returns home. These give his reasons for repeated voyages (despite rather bad luck) and also provide a vision of England to contrast with the fantastic lands he encounters. The first of these breaks, at the end of part 1, explains that Gulliver does not need to go back to sea to earn more money: as he says, he “left fifteen hundred pounds with my Wife, and fixed her in a good House at Redriff,” in addition to which he has “an Estate in Land, near Epping, of about thirty Pounds a Year; and I had a long Lease of the Black-Bull in Fetter-Lane, which yielded me as much more.” He attributes his traveling to an “insatiable Desire of seeing foreign Countries.”44 This is also the reason he gives for embarking on a third voyage—and the fact that the captain of the ship offers him double his usual salary probably helped. He was convinced to go on his final journey by “an advantageous offer” to be captain of a ship, rather than surgeon. Gulliver’s ambitions get the best of him in this respect, as his men mutiny and set him ashore by himself. From these interludes, then, we can conclude that Gulliver is far from an average seafaring man trying to earn a living: with £1,500, a house, and two successful business ventures, there is no financial reason for him to continue going to sea. The narrative depends on the reader accepting that Gulliver was simply curious, which does not increase his supposed objectivity. Moreover, his need to provide for his family shows how the utopian community of the Houyhnhnms could not work in practice, at least not in the version of England that Swift shows us in the Travels. If we are meant to believe Gulliver’s urging that the main point of his narrative is to show the superiority of the Houyhnhnm way of life, then the Travels is a seriously pessimistic work of satire. None of the other works of social satire from this period achieved anyFiction with Purpose · 211

thing like the popularity of A Tale of a Tub or Gulliver’s Travels, but this does not mean they are totally forgettable hack jobs. Thomas Brown’s Letters from the Dead to the Living (1702) is an interesting imitation of Lucian.45 In a collection of letters from dead famous people, Brown points out the follies of ambition, pride, and other vices that plague monarchs, writers, and others. Amusing and sharp-witted, they mostly do not provide narratives of any length but exhibit Brown’s ability to adopt a range of personas. The Consolidator (1705) satirizes both government corruption and excesses of scientific inquiry. Works of more instructional than satiric purpose, such as The Surprize: Or, Constancy Rewarded (1724), or The Ladies Tales: Exemplified in the Virtues and Vices of the Quality and Reflections (1714), demonstrate how fiction was also used to provide exemplary social models. Swift’s narratives stand out from other works of social criticism because of how they combine different techniques of fiction to aim at a variety of satiric targets, but they are just one manifestation of the relationship between fiction and real world improvement.

Religious and Spiritual Fiction As with the political and social satire, there are a few works of religious fiction that achieved long-lasting success, while most were only printed once or twice. Out of the sixteen new works of fiction I have categorized as chiefly promoting a religious message, just four are printed more than three times: Mrs. Veal (1706), Robinson Crusoe (1719), The Hermit (1727), and Friendship in Death (1729). All of these had at least a dozen subsequent printings. A Journal of the Plague Year (1722) was only printed once, but a chapbook abridgment of it was reprinted throughout the century. What were these works doing right? Interestingly, none of these follow the format that had gained Bunyan so much success (and continued to do so) with Pilgrim’s Progress: there are a few pilgrim narratives, such as The Progress of the Christian Pilgrim (1700) or Nine Pious Pilgrims (1707), but these only had two editions apiece. I argue that what sets Mrs. Veal, Crusoe, and The Hermit apart from other religious fictions is their focus on plot rather than message: while all three undeniably contain didactic lessons, they have lively, well-constructed stories to entertain readers not interested in moral instruction. Friendship in Death, coming at the end of this period, has no plot but is instead a series of easily digestible, unrelated stories—much like

212 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

the character sketches that Addison and Steele made so famous in the Spectator. This focus on plot and character rather than on message (as Bunyan had done) signifies a shift in the type of religious fiction readers were purchasing in the early eighteenth century. Mrs. Veal (1706)

The True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal neatly balances story, religious moral, and advertising.46 The author of the preface tries very hard to make the tale seem true, declaring, “This relation is Matter of Fact, and attended with such Circumstances as may induce any Reasonable Man to believe it” (sig. A1v). The preface explains that “The use which we ought to make of it [the story] is, to consider, That there is a Life to come after this, and a Just God, who will retribute to every one according to the Deeds done in the Body” and advises that readers should “turn to God by a speedy Repentance, ceasing to do Evil and Learning to do Well” (sig. A1v). The plot is very simple: Mrs. Veal visits her friend Mrs. Bargrave and the two read some religious texts, but after Mrs. Veal leaves, her friend learns that she had actually died earlier that day in another place. The narrator explains that Mrs. Veal’s purpose in appearing as a ghost was “to comfort Mrs. Bargrave in her Affliction, and to ask her Forgiveness for her Breach of Friendship, and with a Pious Discourse to encourage her” (8). This “Pious Discourse” emphasizes “Drelincourt’s Book of Death, which was the best she said on that Subject, was ever Wrote” (3). This work is advertised at the end of the first edition of Mrs. Veal. The story was appealing enough on its own that later editions of Drelincourt’s work included it after the preface, adding, “Which Apparition recommends the Perusal of Drelincourt’s Book of Consolations against the Fears of Death.” This highlights the advertising message of Mrs. Veal rather than its religious morals. Yet what makes Mrs. Veal interesting as a work of fiction, not just an elaborate advertisement, is its attention to detail to enhance plausibility. In addition to the prefatory insistence that the work is true, the narrator declares that Mrs. Bargrave “is my Intimate Friend, and I can avouch for her Reputation” (1). Oddly, the evidence of her unimpeachable reputation is that “notwithstanding the unheard of ill Usage of a very Wicked Husband, there is not the least sign of Dejection in her Face” (1). This passing reference to the Veals’ home life is typical of other details in the story that add

Fiction with Purpose · 213

depth to an otherwise simple plot by referring to events or people outside of the main action of Mrs. Veal’s visit. Mrs. Bargrave demonstrates to the narrator that she knew facts, like the fabric of Mrs. Veal’s new dress, which she could only have heard from Mrs. Veal herself. Perhaps the most interesting strategy for emphasizing the narrative’s truth is that Mrs. Bargrave “never took the value of a Farthing, nor suffer’d her Daughter to take any thing of any Body, and therefore can have no Interest in telling the Story” (7). In other words, if she were making it up, she would be trying to profit by it—but since she has not accepted payment for her story, her motives must be altruistic. Given that Mrs. Veal is blatantly advertising Drelincourt’s book, we might take this as a subtle indication on the part of the writer that the work is not true: he or she obviously took money for writing Mrs. Veal to advertise the book, and so would be enticed to say things that were not true in order to profit more. Robinson Crusoe (1719)

While Mrs. Veal urges resignation to Providence specifically regarding death, The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe promotes acquiescence to God throughout life. Robinson Crusoe is often identified as the start of, or at least a significant landmark in, the history of fiction, and the high number of reprints of the work does indicate its significance in its own time.47 Critics from the twentieth century and later have focused on the complex individuality of the title character as he undergoes a spiritual rebirth and conversion from sinning to faith in God.48 That is, in fact, the explicit purpose of the work: as the preface explains, “The Story is told with Modesty, with Seriousness, and with a religious Application of Events to the Uses to which wise Men always apyly them (viz.) to the Instruction of others by this Example, and to justify and honour the Wisdom of Providence in all the Variety of our Circumstances” (sig. A2r–A2v). The moral of Robinson Crusoe, therefore, is for the reader to “honour” Providence no matter what happens. This is not saying that God is always right, but rather that the reader should practice submission. What makes Crusoe’s religious message interesting is that instead of showing the clarity of the path to faith—as might be expected from a didactic work—he demonstrates just how difficult it is for a sinner to convert to belief. Through many dire events—slavery, shipwreck, an earthquake—

214 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

he tries to survive but does not turn to faith: as he puts it, “I had not the least serious religious Thought, nothing but the common, Lord ha’ Mercy upon me; and when it was over, that went away too” (94). Although the first part of his narrative contains many events in which he later sees the hand of Providence (such as the sprouting of some seeds he accidently threw on the ground), at the time, they do not impact his religious thought. Only when he is immobilized by fever and headache for more than a week does he have a vision that helps him see that he was being punished for disobeying his father by leaving home, and that he needs to repent and become more faithful (101–3). Immediately after his recovery, he begins reading the Bible and praying in earnest. Even so, he occasionally questions his initial blind submission to the whims of Providence. He wonders why God “should hide that Light from some, and reveal it to others, and yet expect a like Duty from both”—that is, that Christianity has not been revealed to many pagan people in the world, so they are automatically condemned to hell (248). But he immediately quashes these doubts, considering that God must have condemned them “on account of sinning against the Light” (249). Crusoe prevents his doubts by reminding himself that God has a purpose for everything and that humans cannot understand some divine actions, nor should they try. Crusoe’s conversion narrative contains two important messages for readers. First, Crusoe converts following a near-death illness, which is one of the few trials he undergoes that most people might experience at first hand. If he had found faith after an earthquake, his case would seem more unique and isolated, and not as replicable or relatable. Second, Crusoe’s immediate response to his newfound religious feeling, and the next step in his conversion process, is to read scripture and utter prayer. He is following institutionalized religion, not reacting with ecstatic or charismatic behavior, and, specifically, he is Protestant (without needing the intercession of a priest between him and God). These two concepts are reinforced in Crusoe’s religious feelings throughout the first Crusoe volume and are exemplified when he converts Friday to Christianity. As he explains, “as the bare reading the Scripture made me capable of understanding enough of my Duty, to carry me directly on to the great Work of sincere Repentance for my Sins . . . and this without any Teacher or Instructor; I mean, humane; so the same plain Instruction sufficiently serv’d to the enlightening this Savage Creature” (262). The Bible alone provides him with instruction and salvation.

Fiction with Purpose · 215

The third Crusoe work, Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe (1720), is far less successful than The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures and concentrates on its religious message rather than the story. Where critics have mostly focused on Crusoe’s island experience, which occupies about half of volume 1, the preface to Serious Reflections explains that “there’s not a Circumstance in the imaginary Story, but has its just Allusion to a real Story, and chimes Part for Part, and Step for Step with the inimitable Life of Robinson Crusoe” (sig. A5r). The point of Serious Reflections is to pull out the moral from the rest of the story, and so it does not advance the plot any further in time. However, as I have argued elsewhere at length, Serious Reflections presents a different view of Providence and religion than is found in the first volume of the trilogy—and in effect cancels out the narrative’s conversion message by poking holes in Crusoe’s simplistic faith from the first volume and showing him reneging on some of his initial beliefs.49 From his experiences with native peoples in Farther Adventures, Crusoe has learned that not all pagans can be converted, so in Serious Reflections he suggests that Catholics and Protestants join together to crusade against any reluctant heathens (252–54). The lack of reprints of Serious Reflections can therefore be accounted for in terms of both its form and its content. Dobrée rightly calls it “the Crusoe that nobody reads,” which is true both in the sense that it was very rarely printed after its first publication and in the sense that it is difficult to digest from start to finish (420). It is organized in a series of essays on topics like solitude, “immodest discourse,” faith, and “the Proportion between the Christian and Pagan World.” There is no plot, only a few anecdotes, and only one main character (Crusoe’s narrative voice). Yet all the references to incidents that back up the morals come from Crusoe’s fictional life. Serious Reflections is fiction since it draws on fictional events and employs a fictional narrator, yet it reads like a collection of nonfictional essays. Moreover, the content of the essays is such that they might put off many readers, especially those who enjoyed the first Crusoe volume—who are precisely the audience most likely to turn to Serious Reflections. By rethinking and rejecting the key elements of his initial conversion narrative, Crusoe alienates readers who found his tale attractive because they enjoyed his conversion experience. The lack of plot means that Serious Reflections comes across like a cranky reinterpretation of the first Crusoe volume rather than an addition to the story, so its unpopularity is not surprising given the genuine interest generated by the island narrative. 216 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

A Journal of the Plague Year (1722)

A Journal of the Plague Year uses the threat of death to encourage readers to trust that they will be saved if they are good, and to believe that God has the ultimate say in life and death, so humans should resign themselves to their fates. The narrator describes his staying in London during the plague as akin to submitting to God’s judgment: he received signs that “it was the Will of Heaven I should not go” and reasons that “if I attempted to secure my self by fleeing from my Habitation, and acted contrary to these Intimations, which I believed to be Divine, it was a kind of flying from God, and that he could cause his Justice to overtake me” (13). Ultimately, though, he comes to agree with his brother that staying in London voluntarily is foolish: “I must say, that tho’ Providence seem’d to direct my Conduct to be otherwise; yet it is my opinion, and I must leave it as a Prescription, (viz.) that the best Physick against the Plague is to run away from it” (227). He repeatedly refers to the plague as a “terrible Judgment” against people for their sins, though he never specifies what those sins might be (258). Despite the efforts of people to avoid getting sick, the narrator explains, “Nothing, but the immediate Finger of God, nothing, but omnipotent Power could have” stopped it, adding that “In the Middle of their Distress, when the Condition of the City of London was so truly calamitous, just then it pleased God, as it were, by his immediate Hand to disarm this Enemy” (282, 284). By doing this, God is being merciful (in halting the plague) and also demonstrating his ultimate power (in stopping it when its cease seemed most unlikely). The lack of reprints of A Journal is not surprising, considering that the work has no cohesive plot, only one main character, and an inconsistent religious message. The narrator changes his mind repeatedly as to whether people should stand and face the plague or avoid it; whether “signs” from God are possible, or whether God’s ways are hidden from humans; and whether the plague is a punishment for past sins, an opportunity for God to demonstrate mercy or test the people, or simply a statement of divine power. Peppered with statistics and biblical allusions, A Journal is dense but not as rewarding as other works of fiction for either readers looking for a good story or readers seeking religious instruction. Nicholas Seager argues convincingly that the reproduction of the “bills of mortality” for the plague is not a ploy for the work to be taken as true, but instead the fictional elements overwhelm the factual until the work “can be understood as a statement about the fictitious nature of numerical data.”50 Robert Mayer Fiction with Purpose · 217

suggests that A Journal represents a perfect mingling of history and fiction.51 Such a work does not make for widespread appeal. A sixteen-page chapbook abridgment, printed in America, provides clear answers to the ambiguities from A Journal.52 It very loosely follows the main thread of A Journal, pulling sentences from the longer work but largely eliminating the first-person narrator, the anecdotes, and most of the statistics. The details that the abridgers choose to include are mainly those that describe what Londoners did during the plague: notably, more than a page is devoted to the way different Protestant factions began worshipping together, adding that “On the other Side of the Grave we shall all be Brethren again” (4). The narrator’s choice to stay, which in A Journal ultimately comes when he cannot find a horse to ride out of town (which he takes as a sign), is replaced here by the main character opening his Bible to the Ninety-First Psalm and reading, “I will say of the Lord, He is my Refuge, and my Fortress, my God, in him will I trust” (13). This more explicit religious message is supported by three pages of commentary about the importance of scripture in guiding all actions in life. In this abridgment (printed eight times in the latter eighteenth century, though sometimes without the three-page reflection), A Journal has been repackaged as an argument in favor of universal Christianity. The Hermit (1727)

The Hermit repeats the Robinson Crusoe story but eliminates the vacillating conversion experience. The narrative begins in 1724 when the merchant Edward Dorrington discovers a small island in the South Seas inhabited by Philip Quarll. Quarll, an old man, refuses to come back to England with Dorrington but instead gives him his journal, “expecting you will revise and publish it” (41–42). Dorrington agrees, and most of the rest of The Hermit is supposedly Dorrington’s paraphrase of the journal. His third-person perspective means that the work focuses more on Quarll’s actions than his thoughts, so the treatment of his religious experience is much more superficial than Crusoe’s. The central portion of The Hermit describes Quarll’s trials before being shipwrecked. Including this story makes his decision to stay on the island more plausible than it otherwise would be, and it hastens the aspect of the narrative that Coby Dowdell identifies as “the castaway’s transformation of his or her forced exile into voluntary retirement.”53 While Quarll certainly does not intend to be shipwrecked, he is almost immedi218 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

ately relieved to find himself alone and happily embraces the dictates of Providence. Quarll’s life before his shipwreck is very much like the rogue tales common throughout the early eighteenth century. Born into a very poor family, he eventually goes to sea, and upon his return he marries the first woman he meets without realizing she is a prostitute (81). He becomes a singing-master and his wife leaves him for another man. Quarll’s second wife proves so difficult to live with that he keeps her confined in the country and marries twice more (131–36). At last the first wife catches up with him and he is condemned to death for bigamy. This is the point when Quarll thinks he has sunk lowest and is “the very Out-cast and Scorn of Providence” (149). Unlike Crusoe and other heroes of spiritual autobiography, Quarll never repents bigamy or deception but persists in blaming the women he marries for tricking him. Charles II pardons him and he leaves for his ill-fated sea voyage, but at no point does he acknowledge any guilt or contrition. Quarll’s past explains why he describes his island to Dorrington as “a second Garden of Eden, only here’s no forbidden Fruit, nor Women to tempt a Man” (16). Quarll’s hermitage is not so much a place for religious reflection and devotion to God as it is a retreat from the temptations that caused him so much trouble in the first part of his life. Quarll exhibits almost instant conversion to faith on landing on the island. When Dorrington first asks him how he came to the deserted place, he replies that it was “by the Help of Providence . . . who snatch’d me from out of the ravenous Jaws of Death” (14). Indeed, his survival is far easier than Crusoe’s. When he first gets to the island, he thinks he will have to eat grass to survive, but then he spots “a fine large Cod-fish, near six Foot long, dabling in a Hole in the Rock, where the late Storm had cast it” (160). Where Crusoe’s visions terrify him and make him repent his sins, Quarll has pleasant visions of beautiful women encouraging him to store up provisions for winter (163–65, 244). He finds food and soon manages to make himself a shelter, domesticate wild antelope, plant roots and vegetables, and keep his journal using ink and paper he finds in a sea chest that came ashore. Unsurprisingly, he is glad to be a hermit: he declares proudly his newfound realization that “Pomp and Greatness are but Pagentry, which oftentimes proves more prejudicial to the Actor, than diverting to the Beholder” (181). While Quarll’s religion takes only the most basic form of thanking Providence for providing for him, he is committed to the hermit life. Even when Quarll does encounter setbacks in his island paradise, he does Fiction with Purpose · 219

not let them deter him for long from his spiritual path. Only one incident affects him for any sustained period. In 1705, thirty years after his shipwreck, a monkey befriends him and he makes it his companion, calling it Beaufidelle (248). After some years, Beaufidelle is bitten to death by a flock of eagles. Quarll “spent the Year but dully, for Want of his diverting Company at Home” (261). He is only roused from this funk by a dream that he believes shows him the face of the next British monarch, which gives him pleasure. Unlike other challenges, where he turns to Providence, the death of Beaufidelle is compensated by secular means. The Hermit is a religious narrative, but rather than highlighting the conversion experience, as Robinson Crusoe does, it emphasizes the ideal of a world without temptations or dangers. By showing Quarll comforted by the sight of the British king, The Hermit implies that such a world (or at least the peace that accompanies it) might exist in a future reign. Friendship in Death (1728)

Friendship in Death also promotes Christian resignation, but employs many short letters from different people, rather than following one character through a series of trials. The preface explains that “The Drift of these Letters is, to impress the Notion of the Soul’s Immortality,” and indeed, each letter is from a dead spirit (sig. A3v). Rowe’s success derives from her ability to make religious sentiment palatable. Peter Walmsley rightly argues that “Friendship in Death provides a new Christian ethical discourse that, rather than emanating from the pulpit, is negotiated through personal experience.”54 Spencer and Turner point out that Rowe herself was a model for female piety.55 As one of the letter writers comments, “you confess’d, that tho’ you thought Religion a Delusion, it was the most agreeable Delusion in the World” (6). In other words, those who take literally Rowe’s view of a heaven where the dead go on living can take comfort in the loss of their loved ones. Friendship in Death is metaphoric and sentimental but is a fairly pleasant way to get across a dry message. To carry out its purpose of persuading the reader to believe in heaven, Friendship in Death repeatedly provides assurances that heaven is real, or at least that the ghosts are actually writing the letters. One letter explains that “The Hand will convince you that it comes from your once lov’d Ethelinda” and that it was not a forgery (20). The materiality of the letters comes up frequently, as the fictional writers mention where they will leave the let220 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

ter, or why they chose to write at that time and not earlier. They provide facts that no one else could know, as when “Serena” describes her brother’s solitary walk in a garden, and explains that “I have repeated these Circumstances to you, as a Proof that all was real, and neither a Dream, nor a waking Reverie” (89). Details about heaven assure their readers they are actually there: “Junius” explains bluntly that “What-ever you have heard fabled of Fairy Scenes, of vocal Groves, and Palaces rising to Magick Sounds, is all real here,” and he gives specifics about the colors of the walls and the types of forests in heaven (26). By accumulating information from ostensibly different sources, the letters give the illusion of verifiable factuality. Friendship in Death generates interest in a potentially dull premise by using elements of romantic fiction. Ethelinda, for instance, is a nun who fell in love with a lord, much like the heroine from Five Letters from a Nun to a Cavalier. Unable to bring herself to leave the convent with him, she died of despair. Writing to her former lover, she explains rather ambiguously, “Here are no Vows that tear us from our Wishes, no Conflict ’twixt Passion and Virtue; what we like we admire, what we admire we enjoy” and “That unhappy Passion which was my Torment and Crime is now my Glory and my Boast” (23). This could mean that there is no lustful love in heaven, so she is proud that she resisted love until she died. Or, it could mean that in heaven the vows of the convent are null, and she is free to enjoy any kind of love that she wishes. Rowe ultimately comes down on the side of virtue in this instance by concluding that “The Substance of Love, my Lord, dwells in Heaven, its Shadow only is to be found upon Earth” (24). Still, the letter invites dual interpretations of heaven as a realm free of amorous love or a place where passions can be fulfilled without restraint. Other stories are more lurid: “Amanda” writes to her sister-in-law that her husband killed himself after trying to sleep with his own sister and being refused (32). “Alexis” tells his former mistress not to continue with her current lover since he is in fact her own brother, switched at birth with a female child to provide an heir for his wealthy family (47–48). “Clerimont” writes to his ward to explain that he died of love for her, having “indulg’d a secret Passion” before he was made her guardian (60). In some cases, the ghost is writing to warn the living person of impending danger, as with an anonymous letter telling a woman not to keep an assignation she made with a lover, or a woman who warns her brother that he will die in a few weeks and he should repent his sins (79, 88). Each letter hints at a larger story concealed behind the relationship between the writer and the receiver: while Fiction with Purpose · 221

most of the letters are six octavo pages or less, they encompass a wide range of scenarios, each of which might form the plot of a full-length book. In this light, Richetti seems overly harsh with his assessment that it is “a deadening book” and that “its situations and characters are mechanical and verbose, and strike any modern reader as almost comically unreal.”56 Friendship in Death is not Robinson Crusoe or Moll Flanders, but neither is it The Young Man’s Guide to a Vertuous Life. Other Religious Fiction

One work that successfully combines religious messages with an interesting love plotline is Jane Barker’s “Galesia” trilogy, consisting of Love Intrigues (1713), A Patch-Work Screen for the Ladies (1723), and The Lining of the Patch Work Screen (1726). The first of these tells the story of Bosvil, who offers to help his cousin Galesia marry Brafort but seems to love her himself. When Brafort dies and Galesia is available, Bosvil appears not to love her. Throughout the rest of Love Intrigues, Bosvil vacillates between seeming to love Galesia and acting as though he does not, eventually marrying a London woman instead. In A Patch-Work Screen, Galesia explains that she began studying anatomy and medicine, and so “dispers’d those Clouds of Sorrow gather’d in my Heart by Bosvil’s Falshood” (9–10). The remainder of the text contains various stories and anecdotes, interspersed with poems. Despite the amorous plot of unrequited love, Barker provides comments throughout the work to encourage virtue and religious submission to the dictates of God. In emphasizing this aspect of the Galesia trilogy, I do not mean to downplay Barker’s political or potentially feminist messages, but rather to emphasize an often overlooked attitude that characterizes her version of the love plot. I therefore think Kathryn R. King is right in “asserting the centrality of Catholicism to an understanding of Barker’s career and texts.”57 At the end of Love Intrigues, for example, Galesia’s friend Lucasia tells Galesia she should have consulted her parents on Bosvil’s waffling behavior. Galesia replies that she “thought it his Business, or his Parents, to discover it to mine,” though she acknowledges that “I now believe it the safest and most commendable Way in any the like Case, and if I was to act the Part over again, I shou’d certainly proceed on that footing” (70). Not only does Galesia explain that her previous behavior was directed by the niceties of proper courtship, she also encourages unmarried women to involve their parents in their marriage decisions. 222 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

One main reason that Barker’s fiction did not achieve the success of Rowe’s or other similar works is that it was published in expensive editions. A Patch-Work Screen has the price 2s 6d in the imprint, and The Entertaining Novels of Mrs. Jane Barker (which contained Love Intrigues but not the Patch Work fictions) cost 5s.58 The two-volume collected works edition packaged Love Intrigues and other shorter fiction with Exilius, a work “written in imitation of Telemachus,” and so would have appealed more to serious readers looking for morals of the type found in Fénelon’s work. Barker’s fiction was not being marketed for readers in the lower economic levels of the fiction market. King notes that “study of Curll’s advertising strategies leaves no doubt that during the opening phase of her career as a novelist she was marketed as a Jacobite writer” and that “Curll sought to draw Barker’s first readers from the provincial gentry” (170–71). Barker may have been read and enjoyed by elite or refined readers of fiction—her collected works were reprinted twice—but her fiction was not aimed at general readers and so did not have the success of Crusoe or Friendship in Death. Most of the other religious works either focus so heavily on the messages they are trying to convey that they sacrifice exciting plots and characters, or they focus so much on creating an entertaining narrative that they present only an ambiguous message. Nine Pious Pilgrims is of the former category: the first quarter of the work is a dreary dialogue between “Evangelist” and “Faith” describing biblical stories like the fall of Satan, Cain and Abel, and Jacob’s marriage. The rest describes the adventures of the nine pilgrims as they try to get to a state of grace. Some of these are quite entertaining, with sins and temptations figured as castles, storms, or bogs that slow the pilgrims down (120–122). However, the narrative is frequently interrupted by “contemplations” and “raptures,” which are long sections of religious meditation that have little to do with the main story. The proliferation of characters— in addition to the nine pilgrims, Faith, and Evangelist, there are numerous allegorical figures like Hope, Humility, Charity, and the like—means that no character receives detailed attention, and they are only differentiated by their namesake virtue. Some works that focus too heavily on the message do so without such explicit allegory, but with a similar lack of attention to plot or character. The Young Man’s Guide consists of thirty-eight stories, mostly a page or less. Each one is followed by a paragraph explaining the “moral” of the story, providing an allegorical reading that figures the kings as either God or Christ and the villains as Satan. Elysium: Or, The State of Love and Honour in the Fiction with Purpose · 223

Superior Regions of Bliss (1702) describes how the narrator falls asleep in a grove and dreams that he tours the afterlife, led by a “shining” young man who claims to have been watching out for his virtue his entire life (5–9). A few anecdotes tell the histories of particular ghosts, but most of the 144 pages of Elysium are filled with flowery pastoral description. Such works are slow to read; they might as well have been written as nonfictional reflective essays for all the entertainment that the fictional story provides. A number of works with didactic messages devote so much effort to the story that the religious message becomes ambiguous. This is the case with The Perfidious Brethren (1720). Here, there is no clear didactic message, though it is evidently making a religious point: the third story, for example, is titled “The Cloven-Foot: Or The Anabaptist Teacher Detected” (65). The story describes a teacher revealed to be a religious fraud. It is not a warning, an exposé, or a cautionary tale, but simply a description of a particular instance. The reader is not invited to relate to any of the characters. A similar problem pervades The Conduct of Christians Made the Sport of Infidels, in which a Turkish merchant writes to “the Grand Mufti of Constantinople” to inform him of the religious quarrels and hypocrisies of Christians, particularly Protestants. These works mark themselves out as religious or didactic but do not provide much in the way of instruction. Other works, such as The Dumb Philosopher (1719) or The Compleat Mendicant (1699), provide a story without much religious import and then tack on lengthy reflections on the story’s moral implications. In both cases, the morals are separate from the fictional story, and readers interested in only the story or the religious reflection would likely not want to buy a larger book that contains the other type of material. Two characteristics distinguish the successful works of religious fiction from those that were not reprinted very often. First, they have to have both a good moral and either a good story or interesting characters (or all three). The moral and the story have to be equally significant to the work: the unsuccessful religious fictions mostly focused too heavily on one and ignored the other. Second, they need to interweave the two seamlessly enough that readers looking mainly for good fiction do not feel that they are bogged down in preaching, and readers interested in morals can feel that the entire story is worth reading because of the messages provided throughout. Works that divide the story entirely from the moral do not do nearly as well as those that provide their religious messages through the mouths of fictional characters. This is significant because it means that the story ele224 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

ments of fiction were becoming more important to readers interested in improving messages. Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress was still being reprinted, as were didactic works like Telemachus, but the newer works that were successful interwove lessons with the story. This makes sense: a reader who normally would not read didactic works might pick up Pilgrim’s Progress because, even in the early eighteenth century it was widely known and well regarded, but this interest would not extend to more obscure titles like The Progress of the Christian Pilgrim. Religious fiction was certainly not on its way out in the early eighteenth century, but it was changing to be more like entertaining fiction and less like sermons or biblical allegories. The works of fiction with purpose that were successful, therefore, were those that were versatile enough to appeal to different types of readers and that could be entertaining even after the original circumstances for their publication had disappeared. Political fiction was titillating, scandalous, or topical—and the topical works mostly did not outlast their initial success. Scandalous narratives, similarly, seldom appealed after the scandal was old news or the people involved had fallen from favor. Social satire demonstrated how fiction could be used to provide exemplary models or biting critique of society—and the more successful works of this type, like A Tale of a Tub, had multiple targets from human nature to government and social structures. Religious fiction most clearly exemplifies how the successful works with purpose interwove their messages with interesting plots and characters, appealing to readers seeking entertainment as well as instruction. Readers of fiction in the early eighteenth century did not necessarily want what twenty-first-century readers want, as the success of works like Telemachus and Friendship in Death makes readily apparent. Rather than discounting these works as “proto-novels,” we should recognize that they were part of an entirely different enterprise from the works meant for entertainment, and they appealed to readers with equal success in different ways.

Fiction with Purpose · 225

7 Fiction for Entertainment

s The concept of fiction for entertainment is not new in the eighteenth century, but there is a definite change where types of fiction that were previously peripheral or disreputable became more mainstream. Nondidactic fiction from the seventeenth century had been mostly either high romance and political allegory, or less respectable (but certainly not lower-class) trickster tales and picaresque adventure stories. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries these forms converge, and works like The English Rogue (1665), Love-Letters between a Nobleman and His Sister (1684–87), and collections of criminal lives like The History of the Lives and Robberies of the Most Noted Highway-men (1713) describe scandalous or criminal activities in large, expensive volumes. Some of the most frequently reprinted works originating in the early eighteenth century, including Moll Flanders (1722), Colonel Jacque (1722), and A General History of the Pyrates (1724), were clearly meant for readers entirely unlike the disreputable characters they feature. Other works, like The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Robert Boyle (1726), are episodic narratives with very little moral import. The large number of amorous tales—seventy-six new works in this period— indicates there was a continuous demand for romantic fiction that was more titillating than instructive. Many critics have approached the new fiction in the early eighteenth century by prioritizing works that are particularly novelistic, realistic, unified, or moral. Yet the wide variety of works indicates that readers were interested in different types of fiction, and they do not appear to be privi-

226

leging or seeking out the works that are more like modern novels. I argued in chapter 6 that to appreciate the eighteenth century’s interest in didactic fiction, we need to recognize that they often read fiction for purposes other than entertainment. Here, I argue that to understand fiction meant for entertainment, we need to realize that readers were not simply seeking a unified, realistic, psychologically complex narrative but that they read a variety of types of works in different ways. By looking in turn at each of three general types of entertaining fiction—works about crime and prostitution, adventure and travel, and romantic fiction—I will analyze the various strategies that writers took in each type, paying particular attention to those works that were successful enough to warrant multiple editions. Works that proved to be hits helped to drive general trends as publishers issued imitations and similar works to capitalize on their success.

Crime and Prostitution Eighteenth-century fiction about crime and prostitution has gained a great deal of attention from modern scholars because of its appealing combination of history, morality, voyeurism, and excitement. Speaking of works attributed to Defoe, G. A. Starr highlights the central contradiction in fiction about criminals: “Nearly all of Defoe’s fictional works cause us to identify imaginatively with characters whose actions we regard as blameworthy. At the same time that they compel sympathy, his heroes and heroines evoke moral judgment, and our two responses are often sharply opposed.”1 Many crime narratives, particularly those in which the narrator is the main criminal in the story, negotiate this problem of a sympathetic character who commits condemnable acts by showing the criminal repent of his or her crimes and reform. Other tales of crime, more often from a third-person perspective, take an opposite approach by attempting to horrify the reader with the brutality and irreligious nature of the crimes and then depict the criminal’s just punishment, from either the law or divine intervention. A third category of crime narrative attempts to generate both sympathy and repulsion, and may or may not end with the punishment of the criminal. These different types of narratives appeal to readers in different ways: sympathy between the reader and the main character; excitement at reading about terrible crimes from the safety of a book; and appreciation of an ethically complicated work that questions why people commit crime.

Fiction for Entertainment · 227

Crime Narratives of Repentance and Reform: Singleton, Col. Jacque, and Moll Flanders

Tales of criminals who repent mingle the appeal of educational and entertaining fiction. For scrupulous readers, they include a moral message, often highlighting the extent of divine grace or the spiritual happiness that even sinners can attain when they become well-behaved citizens. At the same time, they can depict lurid crimes of debauchery and violence with impunity for the amusement, horror, or delight of the reader. They differ from narratives of criminal punishment in that the reformed criminals in these works of fiction go on to long and happy lives, rewarded for their spiritual reformation with the peace of mind that comes with an innocent and moral life. Frequently, criminals present their stories themselves, often as part of their reparation (either to spread the message of divine grace or to warn others against following their path). This plot formula is not new, but the works of this type in the early eighteenth century devote more attention to the main character’s change from sinning to repentance than previously. Prior to the 1720s, the most successful work of this type was The English Rogue (1665), in which the narrator, Meriton Latroon, tells his story from the perspective of a repented sinner to caution innocent people about the tricks rogues use and to prevent others from becoming criminals. In the early eighteenth century, the three most successful works using the same format were The Life, Adventures, and Pyracies of the Famous Captain Singleton (1720), The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque (1722), and most especially The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (1722). Each was reprinted at least five times in the eighteenth century. These stand out because of the extent to which they generate sympathy for the narrator while describing crime. Singleton presents his story as a tale of adventure, but he directs attention to his roles as explorer and entrepreneur rather than pirate. From the start he is a victim of accident, from his initial kidnapping by gypsies to his eventual return to England with great wealth. When he first joins a group of Portuguese pirates, he claims that “I was exactly fitted for their Society indeed; for I had no Sense of Virtue or Religion upon me,” though he is quick to pin blame elsewhere by explaining that “Fate certainly thus directed my Beginning, knowing that I had Work which I had to do in the World, which nothing but one hardened against all Sense of Honesty or Religion, could 228 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

go thro’; and yet even in this State of Original Wickedness, I entertained such a settled Abhorrence of the abandon’d Vileness of the Portuguese, that I could not but hate them most heartily from the Beginning” (8–9). In this reflection, Singleton employs three different strategies to gain the reader’s sympathy. First, he presents himself as totally untutored in religion, implying that if he had received better instruction he would know how to avoid sin. Second, he blames fate, not for testing him or punishing him (as Crusoe does after his shipwreck), but for planning for him a life path that requires him to know how to tolerate sinful behavior in everyone around him. His careful phrasing of this supposed plan—“Work which I had to do in the World”—conceals the fact that it consists of theft and deception, making it sound instead like a vocation. Finally, he positions himself as being in a state of nature from which he can still recognize and despise immorality, even without the religious framework to explain it. The phrase “State of Original Wickedness” echoes both “state of nature” and “original sin,” again emphasizing Singleton’s untutored upbringing as the reason for his sinful life. His “Abhorrence” of the sinners implies that he would hate sin properly if only he had the religious framework to understand that it was wrong, but that even in his ignorance he has some inherent morals. The ingenious rhetoric of this passage allows Singleton to condemn the behavior of those around him while excusing his own participation in their crimes and preparing the reader for his later repentance. Singleton repeatedly focuses on his adventures rather than his sinning, and he presents his choices as the only possible action. Accused of plotting mutiny, he is set ashore with a group of other would-be mutineers on an island. He suggests that they become pirates but presents this as an act of self-preservation, not greed: “I conceiv’d our Business was not to attempt our Escape in a Canoe, but that as there were other Vessels at Sea besides our Ship, and that there were few Nations that lived on the Sea-Shore that were so barbarous, but that they went to Sea in some Boats or other, our Business was to cruise along the Coast of the Island, which was very long, and to seize upon the first we could get that was better than our own” (33). He rallies the other men when they have doubts, exclaiming that “we must be Pyrates, or any thing, to get fairly out of this cursed Place” (39). Singleton becomes their leader and takes them on a long exploration some seven hundred miles upriver into the African interior, acquiring immense wealth. Unable to hold onto his gold, he returns to sea and becomes a pirate in earnest. Singleton finally begins to admit that his actions are criminal only when Fiction for Entertainment · 229

speaking with the Quaker William Walters, whom the pirates steal from another ship to act as surgeon on their own. He frequently gives them advice about how to maximize their financial gain and minimize fighting, and he encourages them to do legitimate trade as well as theft. When William asks Singleton if he thinks of death, Singleton replies in jest but adds, “My Conscience gave me a Pang that I had never felt before,” indicating once more that he is at heart a moral person (318). Singleton and William eventually give more than £10,000 to William’s sister, whom Singleton then marries when they reach England. In many ways, Singleton’s reform is just one more action prompted by circumstances: he had reached a point where acquiring more wealth was not fulfilling, and in order to return to England to enjoy a life of ease, he had to retire from piracy. Singleton’s decision to live a morally upright life is motivated entirely by William’s prodding and the comparative comfort they have without piracy, not any spiritual transformation. On account of the nonreligious nature of Singleton’s reformation, and William’s role in it, many critics have seen the work as an anti–Robinson Crusoe. Ian Newman takes this approach with his argument that “in contrast to Crusoe’s deliberate rebellion against the respectable middle way, Singleton’s adventures are merely an extension of an already mobile existence.”2 In this view, Singleton is not a rebel like Crusoe—though as a pirate he rejects social boundaries much more forcefully—but instead inhabits a parallel world where the rules governing financial gain and moral obligation are different. Whereas Crusoe had the chance to be a respectable citizen but chose to go to sea and disobey his father, Singleton was snatched from his “normal” life against his will and forced to make his own way in a different society. Other critics have highlighted Singleton’s dependence on other people for his survival and success, in contrast to Crusoe’s solitude. Jody Greene argues that a fundamental theme of Captain Singleton is “its insistence that if we are to learn how to live, we require the company of others and the capacity to find joy in that company,” and Stephen Gregg argues, with good reason, that Singleton “provides the clearest example of a male-male relationship in which mutual exchanges of gratitude and obligation—and even of their very own bodies—form the central terms whereby affection and interest become indistinguishable.”3 Hans Turley’s oft-cited reading of Singleton’s friendship with William goes even further than Gregg’s in regarding the relationship as sexual, from which Turley argues that the work as a whole “questions the terms for masculine sexual desire both in England and in the transgressive homosocial world of piracy.”4 230 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

Certainly, Singleton’s relationship with William is very close, and he relies on him for practical and moral advice as well as friendship. Singleton’s success as a pirate stems from his ability to lead his crew and to predict the actions of other ships so as to catch them at his advantage. He could not survive as a pirate without the help of others. I would take this line of argument even further and argue that Singleton is not merely anti-Crusoe but is an entirely different sort of work. Singleton stems from the tradition of rogue narratives rather than spiritual autobiographies. The narrative is episodic and focused on his adventures rather than his eventual repentance, so that his final retirement from piracy seems more a convenient way to end the book than a conclusion toward which his story has been building. While Crusoe appeals because of his “everyman” characteristics, Singleton holds interest on account of his uniqueness. Most people would not be made the leader in a group of older pirates who spoke a different language; Singleton clearly has an aptitude for piracy that sets him apart from his peers and makes his life story worth reading. Colonel Jack, like Singleton, presents his series of adventures and misadventures as apparently inevitable results of circumstances, not conscious choice. He explains that “As for your humble Servant, Colonel Jack, he was a poor unhappy tractable Dog, willing enough, and capable too, to learn any thing, if he had had any but the Devil for his School-Master: He set out into the World so early, that when he began to do Evil, he understood nothing of the Wickedness of it, nor what he had to expect for it” (6). Much as Singleton presents himself as leading a life of crime for lack of other opportunities, Jack explicitly tells the reader that with a better education he would have been a better person, and that he, too, began committing crimes before he had enough moral or religious foundation to identify sinful behavior. Even after becoming a pickpocket, he maintains a sense of moral obligation. When his mentor is arrested on suspicion of stealing a bill worth £300, Jack resolves on “two Peices of honesty”: to return the money to its owner and to protect his friend (38). The details that Jack provides about his life are calculated to inspire pity. For example, when his friend Major Jack comes back with 7s he stole, the two purchase shoes and stockings. As he explains, “we bought each of us a pair of Rag-Fair Stockings in the first Place for 5d. not 5d. a Pair, but 5d. together, and good Stockings they were too, much above our wear I assure you” (17). He repeats twice on one page that they had not had any stockings or sturdy shoes for some time. The incident emphasizes their desperate Fiction for Entertainment · 231

need, and their thrift in purchasing secondhand stockings demonstrates they do not spend even ill-gotten money unwisely. Even after spending 16d on two pairs of secondhand shoes and 7d on dinner, they have only spent 2s, 4d out of the total 7s. Such economy diffuses the negative reaction the reader might have had to their stealing the money in the first place: surely, they put the money to better use than their wealthier victims might have. Even other characters express pity for him: when he returns the bill for £300 to its owner, the man exclaims that “this poor Child is enough to make a Man Weep for the Miseries of humane Nature, and be thankful for himself, he puts Tears into my Eyes” (46). Presumably, the reader is meant to share the gentleman’s feeling. Unlike Singleton, who would have continued as a pirate forever were it not for William Walters, Jack’s internal sense of honesty initiates his reform early in the narrative. He doubts the rightness of his course of life and even tries to dissuade his mentor from persisting in crime, asking, “if we get a great deal of Money, shan’t we leave this Trade off, and sit down, and be Safe and Quiet?” (84). A short time later he seeks out an old woman he robbed to return her money and give her an additional 20s, feeling guilty about stealing from a poor woman. The role of obligation in Jack’s reformation becomes clearer later in the narrative when he is an overseer on a Virginia plantation, and he explains that the way to run a plantation efficiently is to instill a sense of gratitude in the slaves. He finds a way “to make the Mercy that was shew’d them sink deep into their Minds, and give lasting Impressions; explain the Meaning of Gratitude to them, and the Nature of an Obligation” so they would follow orders of their own will (183). Only after working for his keep does he fully reform and feel “a secret Horror at things pass’d, when I look’d back upon my former Life,” though he admits, “I cannot say that I had any serious Religious reflections, or that these things proceeded yet from the uneasiness of Conscience” (198, 200). The religious side of his reformation is an extension of his theory of gratitude, when he realizes that “I had been a most unthankful Dog to that Providence, that had done so much for me” (218). The conclusion to his narrative reiterates the theme of gratitude. “I would have all that design to read it, prepare to do so with the Temper of Penitents,” he explains, choosing a word that reflects both his own gratitude to divine powers and his hope that readers will follow his example (398). Jack’s reformation is not theological, like Crusoe’s, but is instead built around a growing sense of the power of obligation among people as well as between humans and the divine. 232 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

Of course, basing a life philosophy on gratitude can be highly problematic, as some critics have pointed out. Jack’s treatment of the slaves epitomizes the paradox of obligation as a means of leveraging power: it increases humility and self-reflection in one party, but puts them in the control of the other party, allowing for abuse and manipulation on both sides. So long as readers identify with Jack, the philosophy is plausible, since he uses it to preserve the status quo on the plantation. As George E. Boulukos observes, “Jack doesn’t really view the Africans as fellow humans. Not only is he willing to put himself above them as God is above him, but furthermore, he appears unconcerned with their access to the salvation that he values so highly for himself.”5 While Jack is comfortable with this distinction between himself and the slaves, such a moral seems antithetical to the more inclusive stance taken in the first Crusoe volume where Crusoe famously converts the pagan Friday to Christianity. Gabriel Cervantes reads Colonel Jack’s disunified structure and moral ambivalence as part of “a worldview responsive to the social and commercial expansion of Britain into the western hemisphere.”6 Virginia is a world without social boundaries and distinctions, so Jack is free to make his own. Jack manifests inherent honesty despite negative external influences, but readers who saw him as a model to follow would be led to question the nature and source for authority. Moll Flanders presents a far more ethically complicated crime story. Recent critics have tried to explain it as doing something different from other criminal narratives: Gabriel Cervantes and Melissa J. Ganz both read it as a critique of the inadequacies of the legal system, and Srividhya Swaminathan argues that it is “an alternative conduct manual, one that explores the options available to women in unstable, often desperate conditions.”7 Moll does eventually reform, and from time to time throughout her story she reminds the reader of this by commenting with regret on her earlier sins. Yet while she tries to represent her crimes as having been done out of necessity and circumstance, she undermines her own justification by repeatedly pointing out how she might have reformed at almost any point but was compelled by a variety of self-serving traits (vanity, greed, lust) to continue in an immoral path. This contradicts analyses such as McKillop’s that “Moll is a victim of society” or Baker’s assessment that “her life is a serious study of the effects of heredity and environment in the making of criminals.”8 Instead, Moll presents a view of both sinning and reformation where circumstances have little to do with a person’s moral choices. For this reason, perhaps, her narrative is one of the few tales of criminal repentance that acknowledges Fiction for Entertainment · 233

outright that crime is more interesting than penitence— giving us some insight into what the author of Moll Flanders thought readers wanted. Moll’s initiation into immoral behavior and her descent from poor widow to notorious thief are presented as though she had no choice in the matter, but in fact demonstrate that she always has morally upright alternatives that she rejects. She was born in Newgate to a condemned felon, but the woman who raises her and other infants “bred them up very Religiously, being herself a very sober pious Woman” (5). She has the good fortune to be taken into a gentleman’s family, but begins an affair with the elder son because, as she explains, “I had a most unbounded Stock of Vanity and Pride, and but a very little Stock of Vertue” (24). Their affair only begins after a series of contrived meetings, including one where she pretends to do errands out of the house and meets him in the street. Clearly, there are many points when she might have refused his advances by simply not complying, but instead she chooses to meet him and presents herself as in a state of moral innocence—though the reader knows that to be untrue because of what she said about her upbringing in the home of the “sober pious Woman.” Similarly, when she is widowed much later in the narrative, she describes her initial thefts as the result of opportunity and need: she “did nothing but what, as I may say, meer Necessity drove me to” (238–39). Yet as she acquires several hundred pounds from stolen goods, she seems to be acting more out of ambition than poverty. This is not to say that she never regrets her actions; on the contrary, she expresses sorrow at a number of points, but she does not change her behavior. When she describes how a gentleman friend became her lover in Bath, for example, she explains that she encouraged his friendship until “all the familiarities between Man and Wife were common to us, yet he never once offered to go any farther, and he valued himself much upon it; I do not say that I was so wholly pleas’d with it as he thought I was: For I own I was much wickeder than he” (138). On the following page, she relates that one night “being clasp’d close in his Arms, I told him, (I repeat it with shame and horror of Soul) that I cou’d find in my Heart to discharge him of his Engagement for one Night and no more” (139). In this case, the “shame and horror of Soul” are clearly feelings she has later, as a penitent, when reflecting on her role in initiating the affair. Occasionally she regrets her actions in the moment they occur. When she is considering marrying a banker, she feels guilty about deceiving him when she realizes how honest he is: “If ever I had a Grain of true Repentance for a vitious and abominable Life for 24 Years 234 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

past, it was then. . . . How happy had it been for me, if I had been Wife to a Man of so much honesty, and so much Affection from the Beginning?” (222). Yet she resolves that the greatest kindness she can do for him is to maintain the false impression she has already given him, rather than tell him the truth about her licentious past. Moll’s ultimate repentance comes only after she has achieved material success. She does have some moments of regret in Newgate prison when awaiting her trial, sentencing, and supposed execution. She believes, however, that repentance under duress does not count, since “it was repenting after the Power of farther Sinning was taken away” (338). Only when her execution is commuted to transportation does she regret her actions, explaining, “It was now, that for the first time I felt any real signs of Repentance; I now began to look back upon my past Life with abhorrence” (354). She presents herself as a changed person, committed to an honest life—though given that her notorious identity is now public, she cannot go back to her former ways. She rescues her favorite husband and fellow thief, Jemy, from execution, and uses her stockpile of some £500 in stolen money and goods to buy their freedom in Virginia and start a plantation. In eight years, their plantation bringing in £300 per annum, they return to England and “resolve to spend the Remainder of our Years in sincere Penitence, for the wicked Lives we have lived” (424). This might appear a typical tale of reformation. Yet in Moll’s case, by the time she returns penitent to England, she is seventy years old. She would hardly be capable of the type of theft, let alone prostitution, that supported her for much of her life. The title page to Moll Flanders explains that at the end of her life she “at last grew Rich, liv’d Honest, and died a Penitent.” The sequence of these three changes is telling: Moll becomes a penitent only because she lives a moral life, and she does that only because she is wealthy. If there is a lesson to be learned here, it is that crime is rewarding for those who are clever enough to avoid capture, and that repentance is a luxury only enjoyed by the rich. While other repentant sinners, including Singleton and Jack, are prompted to reform after reflection, Moll reforms because honest living becomes easier than theft. While some critics have read Moll Flanders as an ironic handling of the repentant criminal formula, the unapologetic presentation of Moll’s crimes through much of the narrative makes sense in a completely non-ironic way when taken together with her comments about what readers find interesting.9 The preface explains that “this Work is chiefly recommended to those who know how to Read it, and how to make the good Uses of it, which Fiction for Entertainment · 235

the Story all along recommends to them” (vi). Moll’s narrative echoes this sentiment that “The Moral indeed of all my Historys [is] left to be gather’d by the Senses and Judgment of the Reader” and calls her life “a Storehouse of useful warning to those that read” (331). This in itself is a commonplace: as I demonstrated in chapter 1, many works of fiction highlight the moral as a reason for reading the story. Moll, however, complicates this view of the reader as simply seeking a moral. After describing her repentance in prison, she stops to excuse such reflections to the reader. This may be thought inconsistent in it self, and wide from the Business of this Book; Particularly, I reflect that many of those who may be pleas’d and diverted with the Relation of the wild and wicked part of my Story, may not relish this, which is really the best part of my Life, the most Advantageous to myself, and the most instructive to others; such however will I hope allow me the liberty to make my Story compleat: It would be a severe Satyr on such, to say they do not relish the Repentance as much as they do the Crime; and that they had rather the History were a compleat Tragedy, as it was very likely to have been. (358–59)

This makes explicit an important reason that people read books like Moll Flanders: for the excitement of the descriptions of crime. Moll knows that her repentance, however important to her, is for many readers a pro forma conclusion that provides an excuse to indulge in the rest of the story. Moreover, she recognizes that readers interested in her crimes would rather see her come to a dramatic and violent end than turn penitent. This might seem obvious to modern readers—after all, most people would rather read Moll Flanders than Telemachus or Friendship in Death—but it is a point seldom stated outright in a work of this type in the eighteenth century. Crime and Punishment: John Sheppard and A General History of the Pyrates

If the sinner does not repent, then he or she must be punished—by either earthly or divine justice, but preferably by both. Fictional tales of criminals meeting a gruesome end were similar to factual accounts of the lives of people about to be hanged. In fact, the two are frequently hard to distinguish, as factual narratives were freely embellished, and fictional works often included real criminals. While some readers might read these to learn 236 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

about thieves and highwaymen to avoid becoming victims, the primary appeal of these sorts of narratives is the spectacle of the crimes, which were often very clever. Since the criminal is punished at the end, the narratives reaffirmed the ability of civil justice to capture evildoers and, more often than not, send them quickly on their way to receive divine punishment after death. These are narratives that generate suspense by their ingenuity, not their plot: the ending is almost never a surprise, and is often revealed on the title page. Readers can indulge in lurid descriptions of crime with the safe knowledge that the perpetrator gets his due at the end of the narrative. One of the most famous and successful narratives of this type from the early eighteenth century is the group of tales that focus on the infamous John Sheppard. The story of John Sheppard, like that of his associate Jonathan Wild, began with an actual criminal but quickly was exaggerated and adapted into a narrative from which the truth cannot be separated from the fiction. In contrast to Wild, who was most famous for his ability to elude capture, Sheppard’s talent was escaping from the authorities once caught. The most reprinted version of his tale, A Narrative of all the Robberies, Escapes, &c. of John Sheppard (1724), provides just eleven pages on his time as a thief but devotes twenty pages to his escapes. This narrative, priced at 6d in the imprint, went into eight editions in one year. Sheppard supposedly narrates the tale himself on the eve of his execution so as to have “thoroughly purg’d my Conscience before I leave the World” (3). Like Meriton Latroon, Sheppard describes himself as having “evil Inclinations” even as a child, which escalated as he grew up from Sabbath-breaking to stealing spoons and, eventually, housebreaking (5). Sheppard’s prison escapes become increasingly inventive as he becomes more experienced. His first escape is as simple as having his mistress, Elizabeth, bring him “the Spike of an Halbert” to break open the door, while his second involves smuggling in a razor to cut out part of his chair and using that to break a hole through the ceiling of his cell (12–13). His most dramatic escape, from Newgate, entails unlocking his cuffs with a nail, using an iron bar from the chimney to make his way through six locked doors, and eventually jumping down from the third storey of the prison. While he has a chance in this final escape to make a clean break and start a new life as a penitent, he proves his sinful nature by immediately returning to his old companions and crimes. Eventually caught, he claims “my Senses were quite overcome with the Quantities and Variety of Liquors I had all the Day been drinking of, which pav’d the Way for my Fate to meet me” (29). This Fiction for Entertainment · 237

indicates both the literal fact of his being too drunk to realize the danger of recapture, and the broader fact of his actions in life leading him to the “Fate” he is about to meet (death). Sheppard’s escapes appeal because of their creativity, but he is presented throughout as an unredeemable person who thoroughly deserves to finish life at the end of a rope. For the most part, successful criminal narratives were short, like those of Wild and Sheppard, and priced at 1s or less. A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, however, is an anomaly: although well over three hundred pages, it nevertheless sold enough copies to warrant seven editions by 1742. There was also an abridgment, The History and Lives of all the Most Notorious Pirates, that sold for 1s and went into nine editions by 1769. The General History, in its most expansive version from 1726, is a collection of narratives about thirty-two pirates, with additional sections on related legal or geographical topics. Many of the pirates are similar, so reading the whole General History from start to finish is very tedious. Table 13 summarizes the fates of the different pirates. I sorted the pirate stories into six categories depending on their ending: divine justice, where the pirate loses his fortune and lives in misery (one story); legal justice, where the pirate is caught, tried, and punished (six stories); social justice, where the pirate is punished by his own men or by other pirates (fourteen stories); disappearance, where his fate is unknown (three stories); death, by accident or illness (seven stories); and repentance (one story). By my count, twenty-one stories—or two-thirds of the General History— end with some form of justice. This is often just as brutal and violent as the crimes were, even when meted out by law. Two pirates, Smith and Kid, are hung in chains after death, and one pirate, Fly, is executed that way. Four pirates (England, Anstis, Evans, and Phillips) are killed by their own men or by their captives. Captain Tew’s death is so horrific that it stuns his crew into surrendering: while attacking a ship of the Grand Mogul, “a Shot carry’d away the Rim of Tew’s Belly, who held his Bowels with his Hands some small Space; when he dropp’d, it struck such a Terror in his Men, that they suffered themselves to be taken, without making Resistance” (439). Such vivid description of violence is evidently meant to be entertaining on its own and goes beyond depicting the rightful punishment of criminals. Just one pirate, Captain Condent, reforms and turns successfully to a peaceful mode of living. In A General History there are many forms of justice, and all can be equally satisfying: whether a pirate is killed by his own men or caught, tried, and hanged, the result is the same. The more terrible their death, the 238 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

Table 13. Fates of Pirates in A General History PIRATE NAME

CONCLUSION

T YPE OF END

Captain Avery

Reduced to poverty; fell sick while working for his passage on a trading ship and died too poor to buy a coffin

Divine justice

Captain Martel

Disappeared after being pursued by HMS vessels

Disappearance

Captain Teach (Blackbeard)

Caught and killed

Social justice

Major Stede Bonnet

Caught, tried, and executed

Legal justice

Captain Edward England

Marooned after a mutiny and reduced to beggary

Social justice

Captain Charles Vane

Caught, hanged, and “died in Agonies equal to his Villainies” (144)

Legal justice

Captain John Rackam

Caught and sentenced to death

Legal justice

Captain Howel Davis

“Shot through the Bowels” by soldiers (193)

Social justice

Captain Bartholomew Roberts

Shot in the throat while trying to take a ship

Social justice

Captain Thomas Anstis

Shot in his hammock by rebellious pirates

Social justice

Captain Worley

Caught and hanged

Legal justice

Captain George Lowther

Committed suicide after his crew was captured

Social justice

Captain Edward Low

Disappeared; possibly went to Brazil

Disappearance

Captain John Evans

Shot by his own boatswain in an argument

Social justice

Captain John Phillips

Knocked on the head by a rebellious captive

Social justice

Captain Francis Spriggs

Disappeared after his ship was captured and burned

Disappearance

Captain John Smith

Caught, executed, and hung in chains

Legal justice

Captain Misson

Shipwrecked and drowned at sea

Death

Captain Tew

Shot trying to take a ship from the Great Mogul

Social justice

Captain William Kid

Caught, executed, and hung in chains “for many Years”

Legal justice

Captain John Bowen

Eventually died at Mascarenas

Death

Captain Halsey

Died of a fever and “buried with great Solemnity and Ceremony,” including “the Prayers of the Church of England” and a forty-six-gun salute

Death

Table 13. (continued) PIRATE NAME

CONCLUSION

T YPE OF END

Captain Thomas White

Died of a “Flux” after six months of illness; leaves money for his son “to be brought up in the Christian Religion in hopes he might live a better Man than his Father” (486)

Death

Captain Thomas Howard

Murdered by a relative of his wife because of his “using her ill” (494)

Social justice

Captain David Williams

Killed by being “thrust thro’ the Body with Lances” in retaliation for his murders (505)

Social justice

Captain Samuel Burgess

Fell ill and died; likely from poison

Death

Captain Nathaniel North

Murdered in his bed by his enemies

Social justice

Captain Condent

Reformed, “married the Governor’s Sisterin-Law,” and “drives a considerable Trade as a Merchant” (584)

Repentance

Captain Bellamy

Shipwrecked and drowned

Death

Captain Lewis

Murdered in his cabin by a group of Frenchmen

Social justice

Captain Cornelius

After his crew broke up, he “died, and was buried with the usual Ceremony” (605)

Death

Captain William Fly

Caught and hung in chains at the entrance to Boston Harbor

Legal justice

Note: Page numbers here refer to the modern edition, edited by Manuel Schonhorn (London: J. M. Dent, 1972), since it is the most accessible copy of the work.

more just it seems. Hence, even when a pirate dies of natural causes, A General History suggests that it could have been poison or, in one case, tells us the criminal suffered through six months of “Flux.” Richetti concludes that “the key fantasy behind pirate narrative” was “the self-sufficient rise to incredible power and influence of the man who has only his talents as a patrimony.”10 In A General History, however, piracy seems less a fantasy than a brutal life that cannot be sustained. Far from providing a fantasy of wealth and heroism, A General History revels in gory details of crime and punishment. There were a number of other collections of criminal lives, but none had the success of A General History. In many cases, the large size of such volumes and the repetitive nature of their contents make this unsurprising. 240 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

Theophilus Lucas’s Memoirs of the Lives, Intrigues, and Comical Adventures of the Most Famous Gamesters and Celebrated Sharpers (1714), for example, is nearly three hundred pages of dice and card-game cheaters. Even with the occasional heated argument or illicit affair, their crimes are mundane compared to the swordfights and cannons of pirates. Collections with more variety and violence tended to do better, as with The History of the Lives of the Most Noted Highway-men, Food-pads, House-breakers, Shop-lifts, and Cheats (1714), which was reprinted five times in the twenty years after its initial publication. Shorter works were sometimes successful and sometimes not: the narratives of Wild and Sheppard did very well, but a similar work without the real-life connection, like The Matchless Rogue (1725), was not successful enough to be reprinted. All of these show the criminals punished at the end, often by trial and execution, but sometimes by poverty, banishment, illness, or a slow death. In these fictions, the more violent the crimes, the more successful the work was likely to be, and the punishment reinforced notions of social, legal, and divine justice. The Criminal Character: The Scotch Rogue

A third group of crime fictions focuses solely on the criminal activity itself, not the criminal’s eventual repentance or punishment. These works generally present the crimes without guilt or shame, and frequently claim to be for diversion. Readers are not meant to derive a message but instead to be amused by reading about a lifestyle with which they (presumably) have no firsthand experience. They are similar in that way to works that emphasize descriptions of foreign places or other societies, and like such works, they often highlight the strangeness of the criminal lifestyle. In many cases they lack an overarching plot and continue in a string of only tangentially related episodes that could be continued indefinitely without bringing the criminal any closer to repentance or punishment. One advantage of this is that these works leave open the possibility of a sequel if they are successful, since they do not end by removing the main character from the life of crime. Rather than showing how circumstances force otherwise moral people into crime out of necessity, these works portray criminals as being inherently inclined to immorality. A good example of these works that was successful in the early eighteenth century is The Scotch Rogue (1706). The main character, Donald Macdonald, neither reforms nor suffers punishment. The preface claims Fiction for Entertainment · 241

that one purpose of the narrative is to “deter those that were just going to plunge themselves into the Mire,” but it also acknowledges that “neither the Dangers to which they are so generally expos’d, is able to deter ’em from their Wicked Ways, nor the Profit and Advantage of honest Courses allure them to the Ways of Vertue” (vol. 1, sig. A3v). These mixed messages continue throughout the narrative. Even his early crimes seem terrible to modern sensibilities, as when he rapes a sleeping shepherdess and blackmails her into becoming his mistress (20–30). Donald recognizes the gravity of his crimes, for when he is caught and sentenced to death, he comments that “the least part of my Sufferings wou’d be what I shou’d suffer here. . . . And then shou’d I for ever be receiving the just Reward of all my Villanies” (2.59). These brief moments of regret are not repeated once he is reprieved, and he returns to his former lifestyle. Thus, he knows what virtue is but consciously rejects it. Unlike works of fiction that focus on repentance or punishment, The Scotch Rogue is inconclusive. The narrative ends with Donald sick but not dead, leaving open the possibility that he might reappear in a sequel. He suggests that were he to die his epitaph might read “Here lies a Wretch with Darkness now benighted, / Who, while he liv’d, in Wickedness delighted” (2.115). Donald does indeed seem to “delight” in his “Wickedness,” and he describes his wide variety of crimes with evident pride. He evades punishment at the hands of the legal system several times—hardly indicative of any moral lesson to be drawn from his life. Nor does he change himself for the better, instead reneging on his prison repentance and, according to his epitaph, determining in advance to die unrepentant. The point of narratives of this sort is simply to describe a criminal without apology or moral. There are a number of other works of this type, but most of them were not reprinted much. Some rogue narratives are ambiguous in similar ways as The Scotch Rogue to allow for a possible sequel.11 In other cases, the criminal wins and is unrepentant and unpunished.12 These might be taken as warnings for potential victims. In perhaps a unique case, the narrator of The Life and Adventures of Capt. John Avery (1709) concludes by explaining that Avery got away with his crimes but that “the Crown of Great Britain” would gain “mighty Advantage” either by attacking and taking his pirate island, or demanding it in exchange for his pardon (64). Avery may have escaped capture in this version of his story, but the narrator still wants him stopped. Such narratives do not convey a moral through the ultimate fate of the main character. This has the advantage of allowing for perpetual se242 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

quels, but it does not provide a very complete narrative arc or satisfactory ending—and the fact that most works of this type were not reprinted, let alone continued, indicates that readers valued narrative coherency. Of course, not all works of fiction about criminal or immoral behavior fit these models. The Fortunate Mistress [Roxana] (1724), for example, did not have much success in the 1720s, being printed just once, and I would argue that this is precisely because it did not fit the paradigms for crime fiction. Only in the 1740s and 1750s was it reprinted five times, and then, as Nicholas Seager has pointed out, in a highly altered and sanitized version.13 In general terms, Roxana tells the story of a woman who gains an enormous fortune by being mistress or wife to a series of wealthy men, but eventually she is plagued by a daughter from her first marriage who threatens to expose her illicit behavior. The ending of Roxana has generated a great deal of critical discussion since it brings the narrative to a sudden and, in many ways, unsatisfactory halt just when Roxana’s life seems to be going well.14 In the final paragraph, she tells us that she “fell into a dreadful Course of Calamities” and that “the Blast of Heaven seem’d to follow the Injury done the poor Girl, by us both; and I was brought so low again, that my Repentance seem’d to be only the Consequence of my Misery, as my Misery was of my Crime” (407). This would seem to be an ending of both punishment and repentance. Yet the fact that her reformation “seem’d to be only the Consequence” of the punishment discredits its legitimacy. And the unspecified nature of “the Blast of Heaven” is unsatisfying compared to the gruesome descriptions of death found in works like A General History of the Pyrates. Earlier hints at reformation or punishment are equally unhelpful, largely because Roxana is such a contradictory narrator. For example, at one point early in the work she blames her servant and companion Amy for her first extramarital relationship, explaining that “had I consulted Conscience and Virtue, I shou’d have repell’d this Amy, however faithful and honest to me in other things, as a Viper, and Engine of the Devil” (42). By portraying Amy as a corrupting force, she presents herself as the more innocent of the two, tempted by the opportunity to escape poverty and persuaded by Amy’s shrewd rhetoric. Just a few pages later, however, in one of the most disturbing scenes in the book, Roxana forces Amy into bed with Roxana’s lover, who rapes and eventually impregnates her. Roxana makes very clear that she is the one initiating this, explaining that “I fairly stript her, and then I threw open the Bed, and thrust her in” (53). The man also blames Roxana, tellFiction for Entertainment · 243

ing Amy that “you see your Mistress has put you to-Bed, ’tis all her doing, you must blame her” (53). Such action makes Roxana’s claims to innocence difficult to believe. Later, for example, she expresses some regret for her actions, explaining that “I had very few Moments in my Life, which in their Reflection, afforded me any-thing but Regret; but of all the foolish Actions I had to look back upon in my Life, none look’d so preposterous . . . as my Parting with my Friend, the Merchant of Paris, and the refusing him upon such honourable and just Conditions as he had offer’d” (263). Coming from another character, we might read this as regret for not taking a chance at a moral life when it was offered; after seeing Roxana’s actions, we are more likely to read this as regret for passing up an advantageous deal. Roxana also fails to fit with other works of crime fiction because it is so morally and ethically ambiguous. While Moll and Singleton blame extreme circumstances for their crimes, and Sheppard and Donald Macdonald blame their immoral childhoods, Roxana has no clear motive for what she does. At one point she explains that “as Necessity first debauch’d me, and Poverty made me a Whore at the Beginning; so excess of Avarice for getting Money, and excess of Vanity, continued me in the Crime, not being able to resist the Flatteries of Great Persons” (248). Roxana may have started her immoral life initially because of need, but she continues it because she is greedy and vain. She becomes wealthy to the point of ludicrous excess and so certainly does not need to gain more money. As David Wallace Spielman points out, her highest net worth of £100,000 is equivalent to the annual income of the Bank of England.15 Given this, we cannot read Roxana as a narrative of the moral dangers of poverty. The logical conclusion of the ending is that divine justice is fickle and unpredictable, not that Roxana is finally getting her just deserts. She is punished for concealing if not condoning Amy’s murder of her daughter, but not for any of her other sins. I agree with Starr’s assessment that “Roxana’s ultimate fate is to be estranged from her readers,” and I would suggest that this is one reason for the work not being reprinted in its original form.16 There are some other criminal narratives that do not fall into these patterns, but they have largely gone without notice. The Highland Rogue (1723) retells the legend of Rob Roy as a heroic figure who fights on behalf of his clan against the encroachments of creditors and external threats. Eventually, he reaches “an Age, in which it is not common for Men to perform any thing extraordinary,” and he retires to a more quiet life, neither reformed nor punished (62). The History of the Life and Intrigues of that Celebrated 244 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

Courtezan, and Posture-Mistress, Eliz. Mann (1724) never actually gets to the criminal or immoral part of the narrative, though it is foreshadowed throughout the story as well as in the title. Instead, the book ends abruptly with her still honorably married but promises that “The Second Part, which is now in the Press, shall contain, An Account of her turning Prostitute upon the Death of Capt. Boyle”—though we have no evidence of this sequel appearing (49). These works ventured outside the normal pattern of criminal fiction, but given their lack of reprints we must conclude their experiments did not succeed. Over the course of the four decades from 1690 to 1730, crime fiction shifts away from the digressive narratives of the seventeenth-century picaresque and becomes ever more tightly constructed and focused on a single main character. This is not to say that they became more psychologically insightful—works like A General History of the Pyrates do little to consider individual motives or mental development of the criminals—but rather that the narratives are more pared down and focused. Whereas the four parts of The English Rogue (1665–71) devote more space to the stories of side characters than to the narrator’s adventures, criminal fictions in the early eighteenth century eliminate such digressions in favor of the adventures of a single character. Roxana refers to other characters as they relate to her, but does not drop her own narrative to follow their stories. The increasing focus on the narrator’s life rather than diverging plots and digressions represents a signal change in how writers constructed narratives.

Adventure and Travel While criminal narratives focus chiefly on the main character, adventure and travel works emphasize setting, and characters are often secondary. At their best, adventure fictions from the early eighteenth century use the setting as the basis of the plot and depict the character’s individual features as a response to the plot: such is the case with Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719), The Noble Slaves (1722), and The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Robert Boyle (1726), all of which were reprinted more than five times in the eighteenth century. At their worst, adventure fictions are barely more than travel books put into narrative prose, with little attention to character or plot. I argue here that there are basically two kinds of adventure narratives: those that feature a number of characters, often ordinary people placed in extraordinary situations by accident, whose plots are intricate and Fiction for Entertainment · 245

filled with coincidences; and those that focus on one character, often a person of exceptional bravery, adventurousness, or ambition, whose plots are essentially linear without digressions and subplots. The former appeal to readers through remarkable incidents and examples of many types of human behavior, while the latter, like other fictional autobiographies, appeal with the interesting personality of the main character and the changes that person goes through over the course of the narrative. Plot- Driven Adventure Fiction: The Noble Slaves

A number of works of adventure fiction take the sort of detailed plot that was employed in Love-Letters from a Nobleman to his Sister or Incognita and set it in a foreign locale. Penelope Aubin’s works employ this technique most famously, but other works of fiction used a similar focus on plot and setting with varying success. Recent critics have emphasized the way that the exotic setting makes the otherwise sensational and often erotic incidents both plausible and acceptable: Aparna Gollapudi, for example, comments that “as the action takes place in far-off, exotic settings, the problem of reputation and social censure is precluded.”17 This makes perfect sense if readers are looking for and expecting realism, as many readers today might be. Yet as I will argue here, works of this type are deliberately unbelievable, and a large part of what makes them interesting is the way they stretch and even reject the boundaries of reality. Like the melodrama popular a hundred years later, plot-driven adventure fiction of the early eighteenth century revels in its implausibility and employs stock characters and unrealistic events to generate heightened emotions. The Noble Slaves (reprinted six times after its initial publication in 1722) exemplifies this sort of plot-driven adventure fiction. It begins with Teresa, daughter of a Spanish gentleman, shipwrecked onto a small island near Mexico. There she meets a French married couple, Emilia and the Count de Hautville, and Teresa’s former admirer Don Lopez washes up alive (4–10). Also on the island are an “Indian, who proved a Japanese” but spoke “the Chinese Language,” his family, and two Persian Christians, one of whom, Maria, had put out her own eyes rather than become the mistress of a Persian emperor (4). Lopez marries Teresa (a priest is also, fortuitously, shipwrecked on the island), and the four Europeans sail back home, only to be waylaid by a group of Algerian pirates (40). Hautville and Lopez spend much of the rest of the narrative in prison before being helped to escape, 246 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

while Teresa and Emilia struggle to avoid various lustful men who try to capture them. This often ends violently: Emilia kills an Algerian governor who refuses to desist, then stabs his servant (48–49). At long last they reunite in Venice, with one last attempted kidnapping thwarted before the narrative concludes (191). Altogether there are a very high number of coincidences and lucky escapes, and the characters live in a world with little regard for geography, nationality, or the range of social classes. Aubin takes care to make her characters individualized and thereby more plausible than characters performing similar roles in a work like The Siege of Mentz (1692). Emilia and Teresa spend much of the narrative together, and in another work they might be interchangeable. Here, however, Teresa is consistently presented as the weaker of the two, inclined to speech rather than action, while Emilia sometimes initiates violence to save them both. She is the one who stabs the Algerian governor, crying loudly enough for Teresa to hear her through the wall, “Villain, I fear you not, I’ll sacrifice you to preserve my Vertue” (48). Lopez, meanwhile, is willing to pretend to love Eleonora so she would help them escape from prison, while “The Count de Hautville was amazed at Don Lopez’s Proceedings; his Soul was constant and noble, and would have refused a Life offer’d on so hard Terms as the breach of his Faith” (57). Little is said of their thinking, but characters’ actions reveal different senses of strength, obligation, and morality. The final paragraph of the narrative comments on the plausibility of the characters’ actions, but significantly does not claim that the narrative itself is realistic. The narrator explains that “since our Heroes and Heroines have done nothing here but what is possible, let us resolve to act like them, make Virtue the Rule of all our Actions, and eternal Happiness our only Aim” (202). The actions of the characters are, indeed, perfectly possible (though some, such as blinding oneself, would be rather difficult). Even in moments of greatest violence, bravery, or self-sacrifice, the characters respond rationally to circumstances. Many of these situations may seem highly unlikely at best, but the action never leaves the realm of the possible. Rational action promotes the moral application of the work: throughout, Aubin refers to the power of Providence both as a justification for coincidental events and as an explanation for the triumph of good over evil. While I would say that Richetti and Spencer have gone too far in calling this work “Pious Polemic” and “moralized fiction,” there is certainly a moral that goes beyond the perfunctory final message.18 A number of details in The Noble Slaves indicate greater concern for plauFiction for Entertainment · 247

sibility than the plot would suggest. Chris Mounsey calls attention to “the age of this ‘virgin,’ who at the start of each novel is never more than thirteen years old,” which he sees as an indication that Aubin “was indeed writing for an audience of the age (and probably sex) of her protagonists.”19 While Aubin’s audience was probably more diverse than that, the youth of some of her characters makes their innocence and inexperience more believable. Other characters have less rigorous moral standards: Eleonora spent eight years in an emperor’s harem, and when she escapes she has no compunction about marrying her former lover (149). The setting of the work includes few details, but this might have been because readers would not have needed much information to understand it. Paul Baepler demonstrates that the setting of the narrative in North Africa is a well-established trope of captivity narratives popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.20 The Noble Slaves tests how rational (if not fully fleshed-out) characters and a real (though not very detailed or accurate) setting respond to a fantastical plot of shipwrecks, pirate attacks, attempted ravishing, and imprisonment. Other works demonstrate variations on this pattern, with varying degrees of success. The Strange Adventures of the Count de Vinevil and His Family (1721), also by Aubin, has almost the same plot as The Noble Slaves, but is simpler with just one heroine and love interest. The Adventures of Five Englishmen from Pulo Condoro (1714) also uses a shipwreck to put several ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. In a small rowboat with almost no provisions, they manage to reach an inhabited island and get food and help from a group of Malaysians (33). Not everyone is so friendly, however; at one point they are held captive when they refuse to join a band of outlaws, and the narrator writes, “I expected Day and Night to be killed” (77). When they are summoned to “Datto Bandaro,” he fortunately only had in mind “asking us to sing One or Two of our English Songs” (80). Five Englishmen does not have the elaborate plot of The Noble Slaves, but it does have the same dramatic use of narrative tension, continually building up to a potentially dreadful conclusion only to rescue the main characters at the last minute. The ending highlights the commercial nature of the work: “Many other Remarkable things we met with in this Island, which would too much enlarge the Price of this small Tract, I shall therefore here conclude” (152). This remarkable attention to how cost determined audience is seldom expressed in fiction but presumably governed the writing of many works— and it demonstrates how little artistic concerns mattered for these writers.

248 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

Character- Driven Adventure Fiction: Farther Adventures and Capt. Robert Boyle

While plot-driven adventure fiction like The Noble Slaves used exciting and often unpredictable events to create narrative tension, a different set of adventure narratives employed a single main character to tie the plot together. Whereas the characters in plot-driven works are frequently ordinary people forced to respond to unusual situations, character-driven narratives feature heroes (and, less often, heroines) with exceptional bravery, leadership, or wanderlust. Some of these were very successful: The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719) and The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Robert Boyle (1726) were both printed dozens of times in the eighteenth century. The large size of these narratives (frequently 250 pages or more) meant that they had a small potential readership who could afford to buy them, and so most were printed only once or twice. Farther Adventures and Captain Robert Boyle are livelier and better written than many of the others, balancing description of the main characters’ experiences with the places and people they encounter. Farther Adventures begins similarly to The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures, but it quickly becomes a very different sort of narrative focusing more on travel than religion. As Crusoe explains in the beginning, “the common Motive of foreign Adventures was taken away in me; for I had no Fortune to make, I had nothing to seek: If I had gain’d ten thousand Pound, I had been no richer; for I had already sufficient for me, and for those I had to leave it to” (2). Instead, he has simply a “Distemper of wandring” and wants to see his island again (11). His wife dies, so he rents out his farm, makes his will, and sets off with his nephew and Friday. They return to his island, where he encounters the Spanish and English seamen he had left there in volume 1. Crusoe’s choice to wander for the sake of adventure sets him apart from victims of circumstance like Aubin’s characters. Crusoe calls attention to the consciousness of his decision with a vivid comparison: “I had no more Business to go to the East-Indies, than a Man at full Liberty, and having committed no Crime, has to go to the Turn-key at Newgate, and desire him to lock him up among the Prisoners there, and starve him” (216). He connects his new voyage with the plot of the first volume by explaining that “with Respect to the impetuous Desire I had from a Youth, to wander into

Fiction for Entertainment · 249

the World; and how evident it now was, that this Principle was preserv’d in me for my Punishment” (218). This connection creates a complete sense of character: the impulse that led the young Crusoe to defy his father by running away forces the older Crusoe to ceaseless travel. Even when events happen outside his control, his actions result in his traveling farther. At one point, for example, he objects to the plans his ship’s crew has for attacking a native population in retaliation for killing one of their sailors. As a result, his nephew leaves him ashore in India to prevent a mutiny. His abandonment leads him to join an English captain in a joint venture trading in China. If he had not spoken out against the sailors, he could have continued to England with them. While at times Crusoe seems to be seeking out ways to get home, he consistently chooses the more arduous or lengthy option. When he lands in China, he comments that “if I thought my self banish’d, and remote from my own Country at Bengale, where I had many Ways to get home for my Money; what could I think of my self now?” (295). The term “banish’d” implies that Crusoe feels lonely or homesick, but in fact the opposite is the case. He is so far away from England at this point in the narrative that he cannot keep traveling east without starting to get closer to home again. Instead, he decides to take the most difficult route possible by traveling overland through Russia from China to England. When he first hears about a merchant caravan that would take him on this journey, he says that “a secret Joy spread it self over my whole Soul, which I cannot describe, and never felt before or since” (306). His joy at the prospect of traveling slowly over the entire Asian continent stems from how it prolongs his adventures. The importance of traveling for Crusoe is underscored by the fact that when he finally does get home, “having been gone from England ten Years and nine Months,” his only further adventure is to await his death, “preparing for a longer Journey than all these” (373). Farther Adventures is the epitome of character-driven adventure fiction. Not only would there be no adventure at all without his seeking new places, but he continually rejects the chance to go home until he has reached such an old age and seen so much of the world that there is nothing left for him to do. If this were a narrative dependent on plot, then he would go home when the opportunity arose and bring the story to a natural end; instead, his character dominates the plot by rejecting such closure and prolonging the adventure. A less famous but equally reprinted work of character-driven adventure fiction is The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Robert Boyle (1726), which 250 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

features a hero with the audacity and bravery of a pirate tempered by a sense of moral and ethical obligation. Where Crusoe is interesting because of his indecision, curiosity, and wanderlust, Boyle charms other characters (and, perhaps, the reader) with decisiveness, generosity, and lively adventures in the pursuit of love, fortune, and justice. Robert Boyle is a long narrative, more than three hundred pages, and its price was at the upper end of the fiction market (advertised at 5s).21 Nevertheless, it was appealing enough to be issued twenty-six times in the eighteenth century, including abridgments and reissues. The basic plot follows Boyle from his capture by Barbary pirates as a young man, with digressive stories from characters he meets along the way. Unlike the heroines in Aubin’s narratives of shipwreck and capture, Boyle takes an active role in determining his future and is not merely responding to external circumstances. He gains relative freedom even as a captive, for example, by offering to redesign his captor’s garden to be more European—a major undertaking that allows him access to tools, the free range of the grounds, and the labor of the other slaves in the household (27–28). Falling in love with an English woman who is also a captive, he constructs an elaborate plan for their escape that includes pretending to know how to make a love potion, obtaining a boat and disguises, and devising a ruse that allows him to sneak away in the middle of the day (47). Although he is subject to unexpected events—their escape boat is thrown off course by a storm—he continually takes action that changes the course of the narrative. The most striking decision Boyle makes to change his life is his decision to go to sea as a privateer after the woman he rescued from Barbary (by then his wife) is retaken and reported to have drowned. This decision is in keeping with his earlier actions and his stated views, so it demonstrates how his individual characteristics help to hold the narrative together. Boyle’s sense of justice is based on fairness rather than religion. He makes the very egalitarian observation that “For my Part, I don’t think (said I) Religion consists in Castigation and Penance, and I am convinc’d that an upright Man, let him be Jew, Turk, or Christian, may find his Way to Heaven” (44). His actions uphold this view, and he shows equal fairness to people of different religions. Rather than killing the Muslim guard who ends up on their escape boat with them, he merely threatens him; then when the man begins to weep, Boyle confesses that “I was really sorry to see him so much afflicted, and comforted him all I could,” to the point of promising him his freedom and fifty pistoles when they reach a neutral port (68–69). All this helps Fiction for Entertainment · 251

explain his reaction that after hearing of his wife’s death, “I long’d for an Opportunity to be reveng’d on the Moors” (153). He starts out on a peaceful trading mission, but almost immediately encounters and attacks a Moroccan ship that happens to have on board one of the men responsible for his wife’s recapture. As he explains, “my Soul was fill’d with an unusual Fury” and “I had fir’d my Piece at Random before, that is, at the first Person I saw; but now I levelled all at Hamet, and he the same at me. At last I had the good Fortune to fetch him down. At this Sight I could not forbear giving a Shout of Joy” (155). Boyle takes justice into his own hands here, attacking the ship and deliberately killing the man he blames for his wife’s death. He marks his success with just a single celebratory shout, however, and does not exult over Hamet or destroy more of the crew than necessary to win the day. In fact, after taking everything of value from the ship, Boyle releases the remaining Moroccan crew. This attack exemplifies the combination of righteousness and violent bravery that makes Boyle distinct. He is unapologetic, neither expressing regret and warning others not to follow his path like Captain Singleton, nor triumphing in the bloodiness of his crimes like the pirates in A General History. Once he has killed Hamet, Boyle is done with his revenge, and he instead seeks fortune. In three years at sea he gets enough money from privateering that upon his return to England, “I purchas’d an Estate of 2000 l. a Year in Somersetshire, and yet had 25000 l. left, which I employ’d in the publick Funds” (304). Even this is justice, since he was sent to sea in the first place by a deceitful uncle who defrauded him out of the fortune he was supposed to receive. At the end of the narrative, Boyle finds that his wife is actually alive, and he reunites with her and his son. He concludes, “We liv’d in all the Contentment imaginable, returning Heaven our grateful Thanks for its bounteous Mercy” (330). Unlike Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, which is characterized by restlessness and perpetual wandering, Robert Boyle has a neat narrative arc and provides a satisfying sense of justice and closure. Other adventure narratives that focus on character rather than plot differ from Farther Adventures and Robert Boyle in either the type of character they feature or the type of story they provide. Both The Four Years Voyages of Capt. George Roberts (1726) and Madagascar: Or, Robert Drury’s Journal (1729) focus on characters who are chiefly passive—that is, the dramatic turns in their lives are responses to unfortunate situations like capture or shipwreck. Both narratives are lively and readable, but the characters are 252 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

not in themselves as memorable as Crusoe or Boyle. The Voyages, Dangerous Adventures and Imminent Escapes of Captain Richard Falconer (1720) has a memorable main character but is written in ponderous prose with lengthy, rambling sentences. Memoirs of a Cavalier (1720) has many good episodes, but the unnamed hero is of secondary interest to the battles and travel: he  has Crusoe’s wanderlust without Crusoe’s compelling perspective.22 I do not mean to suggest that these works were less successful for these reasons (and in fact, except for George Roberts, they were reprinted three or four times, so they did generate some interest in the eighteenth century), only that they are different from the two longest-lasting works of this type. From these examples we might conclude that for a character-driven plot to work, the hero has to be truly memorable, interesting to watch, and able to hold the reader’s sympathy—and only Crusoe and Boyle achieved all three. Some adventure narratives adopt different strategies, which can be very effective. A New Voyage Round the World (1725) is a tightly constructed work, focusing on a single four-year voyage rather than spanning the life of a character or a series of episodic events. Critics have mostly seen New Voyage as a “roman à thèse” trying to promote the economic benefits of trade and colonization, but I would argue that the narrative elements make it an entertaining work of fiction and not merely an economic argument in a fictional guise.23 Like the adventurers in almost every other narrative of seafaring and privateering from the 1720s, the sailors in New Voyage gain fabulous wealth, but that is incidental to the descriptions of people they encounter, battles they fight, and events that change their course. Other works try to combine plot-driven and character-driven narratives, often with little success. The Adventures, and Surprizing Deliverances, of James Dubourdieu and His Wife (1719), for example, spends the first half of the narrative detailing the life and character of the wife, then the latter half (after she marries Dubourdieu) shows them at the whim of plot elements like pirate attacks and marooning. Although lively, it fails to cohere. There is a definite uptick in the number of adventure narratives in the 1720s, probably on account both of the popularity of the first Crusoe volume and also a greater interest in exploration, global trade, and privateering, in real life and in fiction. While crime narratives frequently asked readers to apply the lessons of the fiction to their own lives (to avoid becoming either a criminal or a victim), adventure fiction generally tried to appeal to its audience by showing people and incidents interesting for being out of the ordinary. Fiction for Entertainment · 253

Amorous Fiction My final category of fiction, with plots centering on a love story (or multiple love stories), is different from the other types of fiction in that new works were published at a continual rate but few individual works were very successful. Out of seventy-six new works of amorous fiction published between 1690 and 1730, just four were reprinted five or more times, and twenty-five were never reprinted or reissued.24 Looking at the number of works produced each year, there are two high points in amorous fiction: 1690–95 and 1720–30. The fiction in the earlier period is longer, mostly historical, and often either ponderously written in imitation of the massive romances of Scudéry and La Calprenède, or filled with dialogue and employing plots and characters similar to those found in late seventeenth-century stage comedy. In the 1720s, the amorous fiction is generally shorter and more easily consumable, with shorter sentences, stock characters and situations, and repeated plot devices. One important difference between amorous fiction and other types is that readers would read new iterations of the same theme and plot but did not seem as interested in reading older works. Whereas works of didactic, crime, or adventure fiction might be reprinted for years afterward and have ongoing appeal to new audiences, the lack of reprints for amorous fiction meant that few people in the 1720s were reading works of this type from the 1690s. Yet the high number of new works produced—more than any other type of fiction—indicates that there was a continual demand for amorous fiction, and that readers valued it partly for its newness. I use the term “amorous” because it was used in the period to describe fiction where the characters and plot are driven by a love story; “romantic” is less applicable because it relates either to seventeenth-century “romances” or to later “Romantic” literature, neither of which describes these works. The seventy-six works of this type fall into six general categories based on the kind of love story they describe and the overall message to the reader. Courtship Narratives with Happy Endings

This is by far the largest category, comprising a quarter of the works of amorous fiction in this period. I include here any work that focuses primarily on traditional courtship (wooing, persuading parents, and overcoming external obstacles like distance) and that ends in the union of the main pair 254 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

or pairs of lovers. The key source of dramatic tension in these works is the means by which the lovers will surmount the barriers to their union, and the possibility in some cases that they might not succeed (which would make this a love tragedy or an anti-love narrative, discussed below). Some of these state on the title page or in the preface that the lovers marry, leaving no doubt as to their success. Courtship narratives depend on the reader liking the main pair(s) of lovers enough to want their union, so they frequently employ especially innocent, virtuous, or worthy heroines and brave, constant heroes whose love for the heroine outlasts various delays and temptations. The characters are almost always nobility or gentility, and they are often rewarded with additional wealth as well as marriage. Courtship narratives from the 1690s have intricate plots. William Congreve’s Incognita (1692) depends on name switching and mistaken identity for much of its plot, which is centered on two couples: the ladies mix up their lovers, and one of the lovers is mistaken for another nobleman who had killed a man in a duel. Everything is sorted out in the end, and the ladies marry the men they love with the approval of their families. Love in Distress (1697) follows the heiress Aspatia, who cannot decide which of two suitors she prefers, Octavio or Melantius. Predictably, this results in their dueling with each other. Fortunately, Octavio turns out to be Aspatia’s long-lost brother, and her friend Don Ariosto is actually a lady in disguise, so the narrative ends with a double marriage of Aspatia with Melantius and “Ariosto” with Octavio. There is no attempt to make this seem realistic, either in terms of its characters’ behavior and psychology or the coincidences that arise in the plot. These sorts of works are pure fantasy. Other courtship narratives emphasize their unreality by employing the tropes and language of older “high romance” like Arcadia or Cassandra. The Adventures of the Helvetian Hero (1694) is an example of this, in which a simple love plot—Armadorus and Vicentina have to overcome parental objection and political differences—is couched in long, rambling sentences with a proliferation of subordinate clauses and pseudo-archaisms. The final sentence is a good example: “Their very Names and Etymons, are fruitful of far-boded Trophies, and big with Omens of their future Triumph: Armadorus and Vicentina seem to sound forth War and Victory, and from whose Sides and Loins may spring to populate their Land, a Noble Race of Warlike and Undaunted Heroes” (212). Clearly, the characters in works of this type are not meant to be unusual in their minds, personalities, or desires, but instead are the everymen of amorous fiction. Imitation “high romance” Fiction for Entertainment · 255

narratives continued to be written and published through the first several decades of the eighteenth. The History of the Loves of Antiochus and Stratonice (1717) has passages of such exaggerated language that one might almost suspect it a parody: Stratonice’s despair at leaving the presence of his beloved is compared to “when Clouds interpose betwixt our Earth and the Sun, and robs us of the glorious Lustre of his Beams” and several more lines of similar imagery (30). Jane Barker’s Exilius (1715) also purposely imitates an older style, beginning with “Night having withdrawn her Sable Curtains, discover’d the bright Aurora rising” (1). Exilius’s title page claims it was “Written After the Manner of Telemachus, For the Instruction of Some Young Ladies of Quality,” but in fact it is more in the mode of The Grand Cyrus than Telemachus, with many characters, a happy ending, and little didacticism. Some works take an opposite approach, with simple language and an episodic but straightforward plot. Both The Distress’d Orphan (1725) and The Whimsical Lovers (1725) have the union of the main couple blocked by disapproving parents, which they overcome by the end of the narrative. The Generous Rivals (1711) centers on two men vying for the same lady, but eventually she gets the one she prefers. One unusual example of this is The Art of Cuckoldom (1697), a series of tales of adultery that are surprisingly lighthearted and even humorous. In several of the stories, the clandestine lovers end up happy together, either marrying after the death of the spouse who had blocked them or continuing their affair with the approval (or at least knowledge) of the lady’s husband. The interest of this narrative lies both in sympathy for the lovers and in derision for the cuckolded husband. One very unusual courtship fiction that deserves consideration is LoveLetters Between a Certain Late Nobleman and the Famous Mr. Wilson (1723). Told in a series of letters, this work is similar to other courtship narratives except that both parties are male. The unnamed nobleman begins by sending Wilson money and begging him “to gratify the eager Impatience of mine” (2). Full of innuendo—Wilson responds that “ tho’ I’m not afraid to meet a brave Man’s Sword, the Indearments of a fine Lady are infinitely preferable”—the work is clearly meant to be titillating as well as interesting for the same reasons that other courtship narratives are (3). Wilson quickly takes the man up on his offer, and the remaining letters provide details such as Wilson meeting some ruffians while wearing women’s clothing (7). Mr. Wilson does seem to be appealing to a different kind of reader than most other courtship narratives—there is certainly no pretense here that 256 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

it would be good for instructing young ladies—but it also shows how far a writer might stretch the conventional format. The courtship narratives in general are very predictable, and in most cases the lovers already love each other or fall in love very early on in the story. This helps to generate sympathy for them (in the hope that true love will triumph), but it also means that the dramatic tension is mostly caused by external factors rather than the minds of the characters. Most of the characters in courtship tales do not have much individual thought or opinions. Love Tragedy

When courtship narratives fail to end in the union of the lovers, they often turn into love tragedies. These works also depend on the reader sympathizing with the main lovers in the story in order to generate pathos in their tragic end. In some instances, both the lovers are victims, and the villain is a third person who wanted the love of the mistress. Such is the case with The Unhappy Lovers (1694), in which Mellecinda loves Artaxander, but her parents want her to marry Lucidor. Artaxander is killed heroically in battle, and the narrative ends with Lucidor pursuing the unhappy Mellecinda, having “petitioned the King, setting forth, and impudently affirming, that Mellecinda was solemnly contracted to him” so that he “ceases not to disturb the Quiet of the charming Unfortunate” (123). There is no narrative closure, since we are not told whether Lucidor is successful or not, and there is no justice or lesson.25 The narrator is ambiguous as to whether Artaxander’s death is really so terrible, for he tells us that “’twas Artaxander’s Bravery that chang’d the Success of that Day, and brought Victory over to our side” (117). Works where the only likable characters end up dead or unhappy are not very satisfying. A different sort of love tragedy capitalizes on the fickleness of those in love, particularly men, by having infidelity precipitate the tragedy. The Double Marriage (1726) begins like many courtship narratives where Bellcour and Alathia love each other, but Bellcour’s father wants him to marry Mirtamene. Bellcour pledges his love to Alathia and spends the night with her in an inn, but when he eventually meets Mirtamene he decides he prefers her. Alathia dramatically enters his house and stabs herself in front of him, declaring, “thus I deliver you from the upbraidings of an injur’d, but too tenderly loving Wife” (60). Bellcour, feeling guilty at last, also stabs himself. Mirtamene is left with “a Resolution ever to contemn and hate that Fiction for Entertainment · 257

betraying Sex,” warning against the perfidy of men (61–62). In this case, the tragedy is twofold: not only is Alathia betrayed, but Bellcour realizes the depth of his treachery. In such works there is a very clear message against trusting even the most enamored lover.26 A key element of the love tragedy is that the unfaithful lover is also a victim, though not so pitiable as the innocent partner, and so these works tend to highlight the dangers of temptation, avarice, and opportunity rather than inherent baseness. Seduction and Rape Narratives

A different class of love stories with tragic elements is seduction or rape narratives. In these works, the villain is the male lover and often is the heroine’s primary love interest. Unlike courtship narratives and love tragedies, where the two main characters fall in love on their own and then have to sort out how they can stay together, seduction and rape narratives have an uneven dynamic where a male character actively pursues a reluctant female character. Some of these end relatively happily, making the seduction or rape seem less serious. In Mary Hearne’s The Lover’s Week (1718), Philander courts Amaryllis and invites her to his home, which turns out to be a bagnio. Amaryllis decides to stay but points out that she had already made this choice when she came to visit him: “my indiscreet leaving all things in this World that ought to be esteemed valuable, and exposing myself to the malicious Censures of the intermedling Part of my Sex, have, I believe, sufficiently convinced you” of her love (53). Since Amaryllis ends up happily staying with the object of her love, the work is not a tragedy—though the reminder that she is entirely in his power makes this somewhat darker than a courtship narrative. Things do not always end so well for women in seduction and rape narratives, and in some cases the endings are highly dramatic. The Mercenary Lover (1726), for example, describes how Clitander meets two sisters, Althea and Miranda, and decides he prefers the more beautiful Miranda but wants the older Althea’s money. He marries Miranda, but while she is out he rapes Althea. The description of this scene emphasizes his position as an aggressor: “in this Hurry of her Spirits, all unprepar’d, incapable of Defence, half yielding, half reluctant, and scarce sensible of what she suffer’d, he bore her trembling to the Bed, and perpetrated the cruel Purpose he had long since contriv’d” (24). His “cruel Purpose” cannot be explained by the power of love, either, for the narrator tells us that “it was not so much 258 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

the Possession of Althea’s Person as her Estate” which drove him (27). He tricks her into signing away her fortune and eventually poisons her (52). One attraction of a narrative like this is to see just how bad the villain is. Clitander is driven by avarice, lust, and fear for his own safety, without redeeming qualities. Seduction narratives with tragic endings certainly have an implied warning to women to take care of their own safety, but in some cases the villains are so subtle and lay such nefarious plans that there would be no way for their victims to have seen their fate coming. Anti- love Narratives

The villain in amorous narratives is not always a male aggressor, and some stories have female villains and unfaithful women lovers. If the female villain is not the object of the hero’s affection, then she is usually jaded about love and does not want the hero and heroine to be happy. These narratives might end up being idealistic (love prevails and the couple marries in spite of obstacles) or cynical (the villain prevents the lovers from uniting). One example of these strategies in combination is The Perplex’d Dutchess (1728), in which the malicious Gigantilla plots against the loves of everyone around her. While she manages to ruin the relationship of one couple by convincing the man that the woman was untrue, she fails in the second attempt and spends the rest of her life pining away for a man who hates her.27 Gigantilla has no good justifications for her actions, but some female villains have a better reason for targeting specific people. In The City Jilt (1726), Glicera is jilted by her lover when she turns out to be poorer than he thought, so she takes revenge by destroying her former suitor’s fortune. At the end, the narrator comments that her “Artifices cannot but admit of some Excuse, when one considers the Necessities she was under, and the Provocations she received from that ungrateful Sex” (60). Indeed, her position as a jilted lover makes her pitiable and sympathetic. Narratives where the villain is an unfaithful woman provide an interesting contrast to the stories of male seducers and female victims. In antilove narratives the woman spoils the love story by denying the hero her love, whereas seduction narratives depend on the male villain forcing his love where it is not wanted. These might be tempered by a parallel story of successful lovers, as in The Adventures of Covent-Garden (1699), or end in the death of the misbehaving woman, as happens in The Injur’d Husband (1723). As the whiny cuckolded husband in “The Fatal Amour” (1719) demonFiction for Entertainment · 259

strates, male characters in these narratives can be just as spineless as the passive female victims in seduction narratives.28 Warning or Advice

The logical extension of works that have villains, both male and female, are those that warn unsuspecting readers away from the snares of bad people. Works of this type have enough fiction in them that they are not simply conduct manuals, but they also have enough instruction that their messages are not merely pro forma. They are often collections of anecdotes or shorter stories with commentaries explaining the message of each. This might be framed by a group of people sitting around discussing love, as with Entertainments of Gallantry (1712) and The Tea-Table (1725), both of which offer stories as illustrations of observations on love. One interesting example of amorous stories of warning or advice is Reflections on the Various Effects of Love (1726), which does not provide new stories but draws conclusions from well-known love tales like Antony and Cleopatra. The types of lovers described might apply to love stories of the eighteenth century as well, such as a husband who shuns his wife in favor of a mistress, or those so overcome by passion that “neither the Dictates of Religion, Morality, or even Nature, are of any Force” (7). Works of warning or advice are not very interesting reading on their own, but they do give some clue into how eighteenth-century readers might have interpreted love stories that do not provide such explicit morals. Complex Plots

While most love stories have a simplistic plot focusing on one or two couples, some have more complex plots that may include other types of fiction, a combination of the types of amorous fiction I have described here, or more than two couples. Since these works do not follow conventional patterns, they are more unpredictable, and the ending is less obvious to the reader from the beginning. With some works such as the Aubin narratives discussed above, distinguishing the love stories with a little adventure from the adventure stories with a little love is rather difficult.29 Those works that combine different types of love stories, however, are easily categorized as amorous fiction, and they demonstrate that the same reader might be interested in courtship, seduction, or tragedy. Several works that are collections 260 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

of tales provide distinct stories of different types so that the reader gets one type of story at a time but a variety in one volume. Haywood’s Cleomelia (1727), for example, is a simple courtship narrative, but it is published together with “The Lucky Rape” (a seduction story) and “The Capricious Lover” (an anti-love story with a female villain). Each of these appeals to readers in a different way, garnering their sympathy for true love, pity for an innocent victim, or cynicism about false love, but was clearly meant for the same audience.30 Other works combine various kinds of love stories into a single plotline by presenting couples of different types in one narrative. The most successful example of this is Love in Excess (1719), in which the two ladies who are the heroines of the first part meet tragic ends—Amena enters a convent after her clandestine meetings with D’Elmont, and Alovisa dies after cheating on D’Elmont (whom she had married). This combines a love tragedy with an anti-love story of an unfaithful woman. By the end of the third part, D’Elmont has fallen in love again, providing a simple courtship narrative. The main appeal of such works seems to have been the variety of love stories portrayed and their unpredictability.31 In all these types of amorous tales, the reader is expected to sympathize with at least one character involved in a love story that is central to the plot. The varying outcomes of different sorts of love stories, however, make for a variety of reading experiences. This is not to say that these were meant for different readers—a reader who enjoyed Love in Excess might also like The Noble Slaves, though the two are rather different—but rather that readers of amorous tales would approach works differently and take away a variety of lessons. Generalities about amorous fiction in the early eighteenth century, especially in opposition to the supposed “moral” or “domestic” turn in fiction in the mid-eighteenth century, blur the distinctions among this wide range of variations on a common theme. I have here been discussing the new fiction in terms of general types— political, satirical, religious, criminal, adventure, and amorous—but I wish to make clear that the boundaries between these categories are by no means solid. Many works employ elements from a variety of different modes. The New Atalantis might be called amorous as easily as political; Robinson Crusoe and The Hermit are as much about adventure as they are religion; and Moll Flanders’s final repentance makes her work nearly as much a religious fiction as a crime narrative. The most successful works are the most difficult Fiction for Entertainment · 261

to categorize because they succeeded in part by appealing to readers in more than one way. My point in using a taxonomic approach is not, therefore, to assign each work of fiction to a group, but rather to use these categories to demonstrate the range of fiction written and read in the early eighteenth century. We have come a long way since mid-twentieth-century scholars told the story of eighteenth-century fiction as the work of a few “early masters,” but up until now we have largely read fiction with the expectations of a twenty-first-century reader. The wide variety of fiction in the early eighteenth century indicates that readers at the time did not read as we do, and instead sought a range of messages and experiences from fiction other than the psychological insight and realism that many readers expect from more recent novels. To appreciate fiction from the early eighteenth century as it was intended and originally experienced, we need to recognize that fiction was a much more inclusive genre then than the novel is now.

262 · Fiction in England, 1690–1730

Conclusion Did the Novel Rise?

s “Did the novel rise?” is a loaded question, and the answer “No” is implied by my asking it at all. In the early eighteenth century, the fiction world was characterized by its variety. While the fiction market was much more complicated than it seems from the histories of Richetti, McKeon, and Warner, there were some patterns and distinct changes over the course of four decades that signal gradual shifts in the kinds of fiction that people read and wrote. The shift from long romance to “novels” is not a matter of a single book or author emerging and changing everything about fiction. In 1719, Robinson Crusoe was a popular book among readers able and willing to pay 5s for a work of fiction. It inspired imitators like The Hermit hoping to cash in on its success, and retroactively we might say that it is one of the more interesting and complex literary works of its time. But in the 1720s, it was just the most successful of many works with similar themes and characters, and no one seems to have thought at the time that literature was taking a sharp turn into uncharted territory. One of the major points I have made here is that the fiction world for readers in the period looked very different from what we might think from the perspective of three hundred years later. My aim has been to reconstruct this view as clearly as possible so that we can understand better the literary and economic forces that influenced what writers wrote and readers read. I would like to return briefly to the six points I presented at the beginning of chapter 1 as being crucial elements of the standard view of fiction. Throughout this book, I have argued against these long-standing assumptions and argued for an alternative view of fiction as diverse, experimental, and driven by what publishers thought would sell. In answer to the first 263

two points, that fiction (1) derived from romance and spiritual writing and (2) increasingly demonstrated verisimilitude, we can see that this only really describes a few texts (particularly Crusoe). Much fiction exhibits hallmarks of other kinds of writing—from medieval folktales to contemporary journalism—and the high romance tradition of Arcadia has little bearing on the fiction of the early eighteenth century. Verisimilitude is increasingly valued, according to writers of prefaces, but not necessarily exhibited: Le Sage’s comic works and Aubin’s exotic adventures are no more realistic than earlier works like Faustus or Pandosto. Much work remains to be done on fiction readers in the early eighteenth century, but we should rethink the assumptions that (3) fiction was mainly read by women and servants, and (4) people recognized the “novel” as a new and more advanced type of fiction. Fiction was expensive, and much of it out of the reach of many readers. Some servants might have had access to libraries of their employers, and some women certainly did read fiction, but these were not the target audiences in this period. No one in the early eighteenth century seems to have thought of the “novel” as anything different from other types of fiction, let alone better. Only very late in the century—the 1770s—does “novel” even become the general term for long works of narrative fiction. Finally, we need to reconsider the two concepts most crucial to Watt’s version of the “rise of the novel”: the ideas that (5) the significant fiction was new works written in English, and (6) increasing interest in fiction is a result of a rising and expanding middle class. Half of all the works of fiction printed in England between 1690 and 1730 were either reprints of older works or translations of foreign texts. New fiction in English might interest twenty-first-century critics more than reprints or translations, but we cannot understand how readers saw it if we study it in isolation. The high prices of much newer fiction, especially longer works, meant it would have been a serious splurge for middle-income buyers and out of reach for lower-income readers. Some works, like Crusoe or Pilgrim’s Progress, are about characters from “ordinary” walks of life, but they were not mainly read by people in similar economic circumstances.

Changes from 1690 to 1730: Three Snapshot Views What happens to fiction over the course of the forty years from 1690 to 1730? A brief examination of three particular years at the beginning, middle, 264 · Conclusion

and end of this period will show the changes. In 1690, something like fortyfour works of fiction were printed in England. Just six of these were apparently originally written in English and not derived from previously published works nor published as chapbooks: The Irish Rogue, The Pagan Prince, Gallantry Unmasked, The Amours of Philantus and Bellamond, The Dutch Whore, and The Secret History of the Dutchess of Portsmouth. These are all of types common in the late seventeenth century—comic, amorous, and scandalous. None has what we might consider developed characters; all have highly unrealistic elements. Realism, in fact, is not a priority in these narratives: they are escapist, often clever, and purposely portray a world that does not exist. In addition to these, there were four new translations, all from French.1 Also printed that year were new editions of several older English works, including The Essex Champion, Dorastus and Fawnia, Thomas of Reading, and Jack of Newbery. The majority of fiction available, however, and the only fiction available cheaply, was chapbooks. Many of these, such as Reynard the Fox, Robin Hood, Doctor Faustus, and Long Meg, derived from medieval or Elizabethan stories. For a large portion of the audience for printed matter, then, the fiction available was much the same kind that had been in print for a century or more; and even wealthier readers who could read the new English works and the new translations would have experienced them alongside these reprints of older tales. Small wonder, then, that fiction in the late seventeenth century mostly had characters, settings, and themes that were highly stylized and portrayed an imaginary world of nobility and gentry. By 1710, fiction was becoming more current, and less reliant on centuryold models. Only three new English works appeared that year: A Brief and Merry History of Great Britain; Memoirs of Europe, Towards the Close of the Eighth Century; and The Impartial Secret History of Arlus, Fortunatus, and Odolphus. All of these are political or satirical, which makes sense considering the growing public interest and agitation in politics in the latter part of Queen Anne’s reign. Also appearing that year were reprints of some works from earlier that decade, such as A Tale of a Tub, The Memoirs of the Marquess de Langallerie, and The Life and Adventures of Captain John Avery. Versions of older texts were still in print as well: the ESTC lists editions of Valentine and Orson, The Famous History of Montelion, and The Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mandeville as being printed circa 1710, as well as some shorter chapbooks. By this point, however, there were more new works available even at the lower economic levels: both John Avery and Arlus, ForConclusion · 265

tunatus, and Odolphus sold for 6d, and the 1710 reprint of The Apparition of One Mrs. Veal sold for just 3d. While the older works and older translations were still reprinted, there was more choice among newer titles. More recent works also offered a broader range of reading experiences: while some are escapist and portray an imaginary world of nobility, others, like John Avery, are set in a contemporary, recognizable world and feature characters that resemble real people. Even some of the more fantastical works, like Memoirs of Europe, also provide a very topical moral grounded in politics and society current to England in 1710. The works available in 1730 were much more various and demonstrate how fiction had diversified in the 1720s. There were four new works of fiction in English in 1730: The Amours of Philario and Olinda, The Brothers, The Forced Virgin, and Love-Letters on All Occasions. Although these share some thematic similarities with the seventeenth-century amorous tales of imaginary gentry, they are more pared down, with fewer digressions. Two new translations, Persian Anecdotes and The Life and Surprizing Adventures of Mirandor, exemplify the trends of fiction in exotic settings and pseudo-factual life narratives that had been in vogue for the previous decade or two. There were also several new editions of previously published fiction, from recent works like Moll Flanders (1722), Persian Letters (1722), and The Travels of Cyrus (1727), to old standbys like The Secret History of the Most Renowned Q. Elizabeth and the E. of Essex (1680), The Famous History of the Seven Champions of Christendom (c. 1640), and even The History of the Seven Wise Masters of Rome (1576). While people were clearly reading the new works, there was a continued demand for fiction from the past. The greater variety of fiction available in 1730 as compared to 1690 indicates that more people were looking for different things in fiction. As far as the physical qualities of the fiction published, there was surprisingly little change between 1690 and 1730 in length or form. There was a slight increase in pamphlet-length works (25–64 pages) after 1710 and a decline in the number of new titles issued at chapbook length (under 25 pages), but this was partly because most eighteenth-century chapbooks were reprints of older works. At no point in this period was fiction really a “popular” form in the modern sense of the word: it never amounted to more than 2 percent of the titles published in a given year. Even among booksellers who claimed to specialize in fiction, such as Wellington, Bentley, Chapman, and Chetwood, fiction was less than 15 percent of their output, and in most cases a lot less. Fiction did not become more literary or reputable. 266 · Conclusion

Authors rarely received much money from fiction—or even credit for it, considering that 70 percent of new fiction in this period was anonymous or pseudonymous. Despite all the attention modern critics have paid to fiction in the early eighteenth century, it had only a tiny share in the book trade, even compared to other types of imaginative literature.

Fiction after 1730 In the middle decades of the eighteenth century, fiction began to consolidate into recognizable subgenres: there was far less of the experimental, anything-goes diversity of the first three decades of the century, and more attention to niche audiences for particular types of fiction. Both the quantity of fiction published and its audience were still very small—and would remain so until the 1790s. Many writers depicted low-life characters or quotidian situations, but fiction was written for and read by a small fraction of the population with more leisure and money than most. Recognizing this is crucial to understanding the ways fiction changed over the course of the eighteenth century. The older works of fiction that were still being reprinted in the middle decades of the eighteenth century were, unsurprisingly, mostly the same that had been reprinted in the earlier part of the century. A work like Robin Hood that had found enough favor to warrant its repeated publication from the fifteenth century to the end of the seventeenth was likely to continue to be reprinted through the eighteenth. Some of the Elizabethan fictions that remained popular in the seventeenth century were not printed as much by the middle of the eighteenth. A good example of this is Greene’s Dorastus and Fawnia, first published in 1588 and reprinted ten times between 1660 and 1700. Just five editions appeared from 1730 to 1800, however, of which three were significantly altered. Other works, like Lyly’s Euphues, were not reprinted at all in the middle or later eighteenth century despite their popularity in the seventeenth century. For the most part, those works that did continue to be reprinted were those that had been adapted into chapbooks, like Reynard and Jack of Newbery, or those that were rewritten entirely, like The English Rogue. There seems to have been little interest in unaltered older prose fiction for its own sake. Translated fiction continued to constitute a significant portion of the new fiction titles available in the 1730s and 1740s, and many of these were similar to the translated fiction from the first part of the century. Indeed, Conclusion · 267

a recent study by Lacy Marschalk, Mallory Anne Porch, and Paula R. Backscheider concludes that even “original English texts were mainly written in backward-looking forms and that readers were dependent on translations, many of them also backward looking.”2 Sometimes this was because the works were published in their original languages long before being translated into English. Such was the case for de Patot’s The Travels and Adventures of James Massey (published in French in 1710, translated into English in 1733) and The Comical History of Estevanille Gonzalez (published in Spanish in 1646, then translated into English in 1735 from a 1734 French edition). Many translations, however, came from foreign works published no more than five years before the English edition, presumably to capitalize on the success of the work in its original language. Most of the foreign works translated in the 1730s and 1740s are from French, with a smaller number from Spanish originals. Many are set in other locations, particularly Asia, India, and the Middle East: examples include Henri Boulainvilliers’s The Life of Mahomet, Jean Terrasson’s The Life of Sethos, set in Egypt, and Vignacourt’s The Adventures of Prince Jakaya, set at the Ottoman court. The types of works translated in the 1730s and 1740s are much more similar to each other than had been the case earlier: there are few comic or amorous works, but there are many with exotic settings. Through the 1730s and 1740s, proportionally fewer works presented themselves as having a purpose other than entertainment. The works with political messages are far less overt than earlier key novels like New Atalantis or John Bull. The Female Politician (1733), for example, relates the story of a widow who was able “to ingratiate herself into the Favour of the chief Minister,” but the overall point is about political corruption generally, not a specific incident or person (2). There were also fewer new works that were allegorical or religious, and even those that might lean that way did not highlight moral instruction as earlier works did. The title page of The History of Autonous (1736), for example, says it is “A Relation how that Young Nobleman was accidentally left alone, in his Infancy upon a desolate Island . . . With an Account of his Life, Reflections, and Improvements in Knowledge.” While Autonous does reflect on the glory of nature and divine power, most of the narrative is taken up with his reactions to encountering objects and phenomena for the first time, such as rainbows, a clock, and a fan (48, 73–74). Although the plot is similar to moralistic castaway narratives like Robinson Crusoe or The Hermit, Autonous’s religious observations are minor. Other works of fiction, similarly, tended not to emphasize the 268 · Conclusion

moral purposes in the way that was common in the earlier part of the century. One of the few new publications to claim on the title page that it was “Design’d to Promote the Cause of Virtue and Honour” was a collection of short works by Aubin, most of which had been published in the 1720s.3 More typical is the comment on the title page of The Adventures of John Le-Brun (1739) that it is “for the Entertainment and Improvement of all Gentlemen and Ladies of Wit, Humour and Gallantry.” Claims to moral improvement or religious instruction became less common in the 1730s and 1740s than had been true earlier. This is not to say that fiction no longer had morals, but rather that pure entertainment was more widely accepted as a reason for reading fiction than had been the case. If we look at the categories to which Jerry C. Beasley assigns fiction in the 1740s, we see many of the same types that were published and read in the earlier part of the century: romance, “contemporary history,” “contemporary biography” as both “tales of low life” and “records of spiritual life,” and “novelistic” fiction, by which he means avowedly fictional tales.4 These relate to the categories I have described, but there are many works in the period 1690–1730 that do not fit in these groups. How do we categorize Telemachus, A Tale of a Tub, or A Journal of the Plague Year? We might easily see how Moll Flanders is a precursor to Beasley’s “tales of low life,” or New Atalantis a forerunner of “contemporary history” in fiction, but others simply do not connect to these later trends. Fiction in the 1740s fell much more clearly in particular subgenres than was the case even just twenty years earlier. At the end of the eighteenth century, the contexts of reading, writing, and publishing fiction changed. Circulating libraries in the 1790s enabled entrepreneurs like William Lane to specialize in fiction by controlling all aspects of publication, from commissioning works to printing and distributing them. Library subscriptions were costly, but subscribers had access to a wider range of books than they would have if they could only read what they purchased. This change was already happening by the middle of the eighteenth century: Francis Noble advertised a subscription rate for his library of half a guinea (10s 6d ) per year as early as 1752.5 The fiction found in these libraries became more standardized, and fewer publishers controlled a larger share of the trade. Fiction became more accessible, and the factory-style production that would later make the Victorian novel so ubiquitous began to develop. That is the world of the popular novel, the middle-class reader, and the famous novelist. Conclusion · 269

By contrast, the circumstances for reading, writing, and publishing fiction in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries could not be more different. Fiction was determined by the economic realities of publishing and by what booksellers thought would sell. In the period 1690– 1730, no one really knew what would be good or successful, so there was much more freedom for writers to try different sorts of fiction. There was no reason to think that Pilgrim’s Progress, Telemachus, Robinson Crusoe, or Friendship in Death would be among the greatest fiction sellers of their age. Every success inspired sequels and imitators, and over time helped to shape the categories of fiction that would have long-lasting appeal. What we need to do next, then, is to look beyond authors and at the forces that shaped fiction publication more broadly. Why were readers still buying Elizabethan reprints long after more lively, up-to-date, and complex works were available? What made publishers continue to issue new editions of some books and not others? How does the fact that a quarter of the fiction published in this period was older works challenge our assumptions about the eighteenth century being the age of the novel? How does the continual flood of translated works force us to reconsider the novel’s “Englishness”? How do we study fiction in a world that seldom distinguished fact from fiction, new from old, original from translation? As I have argued here, the economics of producing and selling books played a central role in what was published. Our study of fiction requires greater attention to translations, reprints, anonymous fiction, and alternative formats like chapbooks as comprising the fiction world—not as background or context for new works by Defoe or Swift, but as the central element of the genre that they were reading and against which they were competing. Fiction in the early eighteenth century was exciting and diverse, with few rules for style or form. At a time before literary reviews and criticism of fiction, the only judges of a work’s merit were the publishers who issued it and the readers who chose to buy it or not. Their values may baffle us, but that does not make them less valid.

270 · Conclusion

Appendix Fiction Not in McBurney’s Check List

s The following works can be found in the ESTC and extant copies are locatable, but they are not listed in McBurney’s Check List. The place of publication is London unless otherwise noted. These are listed in chronological order. S., M. The Female Critick: Or, Letters in Drollery from Ladies to Their Humble Servants (E. Rumball, 1701). Anon. The New Quevedo: Or, A Vision of Charon’s Passengers (E. Mallet, 1702). Anon. The Parliament of Criticks, the Menippaean Satyr of Justus Lipsius in a Dream ( J. Hartley, 1702). Anon. Letters from the Living to the Living, Relating to the Present Transactions both Publick and Private (1703). Anon. The Rebellion: Or, An Account of the Late Civil-Wars, in the Kingdom of Eloquence (1704). Davys, Mary. The Amours of Alcippus and Lucippe, A Novel ( James Round, 1704). Anon. The French Wanderer: Or, The Straggler from Mareschal Talard (1705). Anon. Man Unmask’d: Being a Wonderful Discovery Lately Made in the Island of Japan ( J. Nutt, 1706). Anon. The Amours of Milistrate and Prazimene, A Novel (R. Burrough, and J. Baker, 1707). Anon. The History of Don Politico Piscatori: Or, The Political Fisherman (B. Bragg, 1707). Anon. The Unfortunate Concubines: The History of Fair Rosamond, Mistress to Henry II; and Jane Shore, Concubine to Edward IV (A. Bettesworth, 1708). Anon. The Royal Convert: Or the Force of Truth (T. Bullock, 1709). Anon. The Lucky Idiot: Or, Fools have Fortune (N. Crouch, 1710). Anon. The Life of Aristides, the Athenian (Dublin: Daniel Tompson, 1714). Heliodorus. The Adventures of Theagenes and Chariclia, a Romance, 2 vols. (W. Taylor and others, 1717). [a translation of Aethiopica] 271

Anon. The Double Captive, or Chains upon Chains: Containing the Amorous Poems and Letters of A Young Gentleman, one of the Preston Prisoners in Newgate . . . And an Introductory Novel ( J. Churchil, 1718). Anon. The French Momus: Or, Comical Adventures of the Duke of Roquelaure (W. Boreham, 1718). Anon. Love in Masquerade: Or, Seeing is Not Believing ( J. Graves, J. Harbin, and J. Roberts, 1719). Longus. The Pastoral Amours of Daphnis and Chloe ( J. Brotherton and others, 1719). Anon. The Spaniard: Or, Don Zara del Fogo (W. Chetwood, R. Francklin, and J. Roberts, 1719). Anon. Twelve Delightful Novels, Displaying the Stratagems of Love and Gallantry (T. Norris, 1719). Anon. Democritus, the Laughing Philosopher’s Trip into England (S. Briscoe, 1723). W., E. The Amorous Bugbears: Or, The Humours of a Masquerade (A. Bettesworth, J. Bately, and J. Brotherton, 1725). De Valois, Margaret. Novels, Tales, and Stories (W. Chetwood and T. Edlin, c. 1725). Anon. Sheppard in Aegypt, or News from the Dead (A. Dodd and W. Bristowe, 1725).

272 · Appendix

Notes

Abbreviations The following abbreviations are used in the notes and the bibliography. ECF ECCO EEBO ESTC HLQ McKeon, Origins

Eighteenth-Century Fiction Eighteenth-Century Collections Online Early English Books Online English Short Title Catalogue Huntington Library Quarterly Michael McKeon, Origins of the English Novel, 1600– 1740 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1987) MLR Modern Language Review MP Modern Philology ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online ed. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004) PBSA Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America PQ Philological Quarterly RES Review of English Studies Richetti, Popular Fiction John J. Richetti, Popular Fiction before Richardson: Narrative Patterns, 1700–1739 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969) Salzman, Prose Fiction Paul Salzman, English Prose Fiction, 1558–1700: A Critical History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985) SB Studies in Bibliography SEL Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 SP Studies in Philology Watt, Rise of the Novel Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding (Berkeley: U of California P, 1957)

1. Defining the “Novel” 1. These arguments can be found in Watt, Rise of the Novel, 31–34 (verisimilitude) and 35–49 (readership and class); Davis, Factual Fictions, 40 (class) and 42–84 273

(nonfiction precursors); McKeon, Origins of the English Novel, 25–64 (romance precursors); Hunter, Before Novels, 3–28 (novel as a new, important form) and 61–88 (readership); and Warner, Licensing Entertainment, 89–94 (readership). 2. Esdaile, English Tales and Prose Romances. 3. Trent, “Defoe.” 4. Sherburn, Literary History of England, vol. 3. 5. Dobrée, Oxford History of English Literature, vol. 7: 408–31 and 445–60. 6. Baker, History of the English Novel, vol. 3. 7. McKillop, Early Masters. 8. Ray, Story and History, and Warner, Licensing Entertainment. 9. Spacks, Novel Beginnings. 10. Mish, English Prose Fiction, 3. 11. Both Defoe and Haywood have undergone major canon revisions in recent years. On Defoe, see Furbank and Owens, Canonisation of Daniel Defoe, Defoe DeAttributions, and Critical Bibliography; and Marshall, “Beyond Furbank and Owens.” On Haywood, see Spedding, Bibliography of Eliza Haywood, and Orr, “Basis for Attribution.” 12. Watson, New Cambridge Bibliography. 13. For example, Mish lists Lisarda; Or, The Travels of Love and Jealousy, A Novel (1690) as an original English work by “H. Cox,” with a second edition called The Travels of Love and Jealousie (English Prose Fiction, 76, 81). EEBO and the ESTC list the first edition, with the same information, but have no record of the second. In fact the story is a translation from Spanish, a different version of which appeared in 1709 as part of Montalbán’s The Diverting Works of the Famous Miguel de Cervantes (not by Cervantes). 14. McKeon, Origins, 27, 110. 15. Richetti, Popular Fiction, 1 n.1, and Williams, Idea of the Novel, xi. 16. Davis, Factual Fictions, 40, and Hunter, Before Novels, 23–24. 17. Eagleton, English Novel, 1. 18. Richetti, Popular Fiction, 6. 19. Hunter, Before Novels, 67. 20. Damrosch, “History of World Literature,” 481. 21. Some recent examples of books dealing with these issues and early fiction include Price, Anthology and the Rise of the Novel; Newcomb, Reading Popular Romance; and Mentz, Romance for Sale. 22. Spencer, Rise of the Woman Novelist, viii. 23. Ballaster, Seductive Forms. 24. Todd, Sign of Angellica; Spender, Mothers of the Novel. 25. Scheuermann, Her Bread to Earn; Mudge, Whore’s Story. 26. McKeon, Origins, 19. 27. Davis, Factual Fictions, 9; Bender, Imagining the Penitentiary. 28. Ray, Story and History, 4. 29. Hunter, Before Novels, xix. 30. Mentz, Romance for Sale, 9–10; Warner, Licensing Entertainment, xi. 274 · Notes to Pages 6–14

31. McKeon, Origins, 97–98. 32. On Glanvill, see Burns, “Glanvill, Joseph (1636–1680), Church of England Clergyman,” ODNB. On Defoe’s earliest publication, see Furbank and Owens, Critical Bibliography, 7. The Apparition of One Mrs. Veal would not appear until 1706. 33. Warner, Licensing Entertainment, 88; Doody, True Story of the Novel, 175. 34. Williams, Idea of the Novel, xi. 35. Richetti, Popular Fiction, 2. 36. Both Ray (Story and History) and Williams (Idea of the Novel ) deal with French fiction, but only in its original language, not the many English translations and adaptations. 37. Bartolomeo, New Species of Criticism. 38. Orr, “Genre Labels.” The following discussion draws on statistics from this article. 39. Bullard, Politics of Disclosure, 1. 40. See the following examples: The Pleasant History of Tom Ladle (1690) (short, set in the past, realistic); A Banquet for Gentlemen and Ladies Consisting of Nine Comick and Tragick Novels, 2nd ed. (1703) (short, set in the present, realistic); The History of the Proceedings of the Mandarins and Proatins of the Britomartian Empire (1713) (short, fantastical); or Aubin, The Life and Amorous Adventures of Lucinda (1722) (longer, set in the present, somewhat realistic). 41. See The Memoirs of an English Officer (1728), “Address to the Reader,” for an example of the latter. 42. The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. For more examples of declarations of truth, see Le Noble, Abra-Mulè, sig. A3, and [Anon.], The Jamaica Lady, preface. 43. The Histories and Novels of the Late Ingenious Mrs. Behn (1696), sig. A5v. 44. The History of the Proceedings of the Mandarins and Proatins of the Britomartian Empire (1713), sig. A1r, and The Dumb Philosopher (1719), vii. For another example of a claim to an actual source, see The Four Years Voyages of Capt. George Roberts (1726), dedication. 45. Scarron Incens’d (1694), sig. A3v–A4r. For a similar sentiment, see the address to the reader of La Calprenède, Hymen’s Praeludia (1698), sig. A2v, which explains that “Thou wilt here find History Enameled with Fiction, and Truth Drest like a May-Lady.” 46. The Life of Donna Rosina, trans. Edward Wood (1700), sig. A2v. Another example of a work claiming to be based on real events is Manley, Power of Love (1720), xv. 47. For examples of twentieth-century critics using Congreve’s preface in this way, see Stevenson, English Novel, 52–53; Richetti, Popular Fiction, 174–75; Karl, Reader’s Guide, 29; and McKeon, Origins, 61–63. Aercke, “Congreve’s Incognita,” 298–301. 48. The Secret History of Queen Zarah (1705), sig. A4r–v and A5v. John L. Sutton Jr. shows that the preface is a literal translation of an essay by the abbé Morvan de Bellegarde (“The Source of Mrs. Manley’s Preface to Queen Zarah”). 49. A Select Collection of Novels in Four Volumes (1720), vol. 1, sig. A6r. For more Notes to Pages 14–22 · 275

comments about the differences between novel, romance, and history, see Jane Barker, Exilius (1715), sig. A2r, and Lewis Theobald, The History of the Loves of Antiochus and Stratonice (1717), v, ix. 50. Memoirs of a Cavalier (1720), sig. A2r. For a similar statement, contrasting memoirs with biography, see Memoirs Concerning the Life and Manners of Captain Mackheath (1728), 6. 51. The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo Villegas, trans. Roger L’Estrange (1696), sig. A2v–A3r. 52. E. B., The Highland Rogue (1723), sig. A2r. 53. Longueville, The Hermit (1727), sig. A3r. For more examples of prefaces comparing works to famous fictions, see Barker, The Entertaining Novels of Mrs. Jane Barker (1719), sig. A2r, which compares itself to Sidney’s Arcadia, and Madagascar: Or, Robert Drury’s Journal (1719), sig. A2r, which contrasts itself with Crusoe. 54. Furbank and Owens, Critical Bibliography, 185, 200, and 206. 55. The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to That which is to Come: The Third Part, 2nd ed. (1695), sig. A3v. For similar sentiments, see The Spanish Libertines, trans. John Stevens (1707), sig. A2v, and Barker, Exilius, sig. A3r. 56. Ayres, The Revengeful Mistress (1696), sig. A2r. For other examples of fictions that either provide morals or explicitly invite the reader to deduce one, see H. P., The History of the Five Wise Philosophers (1672, rep. 1711); Gueullette, A Thousand and One Quarters of Hours (1716); and Rowe, Friendship in Death (1728). 57. The Travels of True Godliness, sig. A2v. 58. Defoe, Serious Reflections, 115. On Crusoe’s declaration of factuality, see Ayers, “Robinson Crusoe,” and Davis, Factual Fictions, 156–61. 59. The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, sig. A2v. For a similar statement, see The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Col. Jacque, vii. 60. For example, see Dobrée’s dismissal of Manley as a “poor successor of Mrs. Behn” and his statement that her and Haywood’s works “may well remain unread” (English Literature, 409), or George Frisbie Whicher’s long apology for Haywood’s style, calling her “the weakest link in the development of a literary form” (Life and Romances, viii). 61. Bartolomeo, New Species of Criticism, 19–28. 62. Post Man and the Historical Account, issue 1420 ( June 30, 1705), 2. 63. See the Daily Courant, issue 896 (Feb. 28, 1705), 2. A similar comment regarding Wellington selling novels can be found in the Flying Post: Or, The Post Master, issue 866 (Nov. 26, 1700), 2. 64. Post Boy, issue 695 (Sept. 21, 1699), 2. 65. A Dictionary of the English Language, 2 vols. (London: W. Strahan and others, 1755), “Novel, n., def. 1.” 66. See Raven, British Fiction, for a list of titles. This number includes first editions of new works of fiction, including new abridgments or translations, but not reprints of older fiction. 67. On sources for the tale from supposedly real news items, see Firth, “Defoe’s True Relation,” and Scouten, “Early Printed Report.” 276 · Notes to Pages 22–26

2. Fiction and the Book Trade 1. Spufford, Small Books; Raven, Business of Books, 84. 2. McKeon, Origins, 51–52; Hunter, Before Novels, 64–66 and 83. 3. Raven, Business of Books, 308. 4. Coleman, British Paper Industry, 54, 56. 5. Foxon, Pope and the Early Eighteenth-Century Book Trade, revised by McLaverty, 53–54. 6. Pollard, “Size of the Sheet,” 123–29. 7. Weekly Packet, issue 157 ( July 2–9, 1715), 3. 8. Foxon’s figures might be higher than the norm; M. Pollard cites prices for paper in Ireland costing 4–6s in this period (Pollard, Dublin’s Trade, 114). 9. Most of the fiction editions listed had a print run of 1,000 copies—and these were reprints of works like Robinson Crusoe and Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy that had already proven that they would sell. A first edition of a work of fiction would likely be printed in a smaller number to minimize potential losses from unsold copies. See Bowyer, Bowyer Ledgers. 10. Raven, Business of Books, 22. 11. McKenzie, Cambridge University Press, 1.52, 37. 12. McKenzie, Cambridge University Press, 1.79–80, 84, 86, 88. 13. Pollard, “Size of the Sheet,” 121–22. 14. Gaskell, “Printing House and Engraving Shop,” 222. He calculates the cost of paper as approximately 50 percent of the production costs. 15. Two examples of this are The Works of Mrs. Eliza Haywood (1725) and Histories and Novels of the Ingenious Mrs. Behn (1696). 16. Bennett, Trade Bookbinding, 20–26. See also Nicholas Pickwoad’s review criticizing Bennett’s interpretation of the available evidence, and Raven, Business of Books, 139. 17. See Potter, “London Bookbinding Trade,” and Potter, “Changing Role of the Trade Bookbinder.” 18. Day, Told in Letters, 221 n.4. Other examples of works that are 6d more bound include The German Atalantis (1715), 1s 6d and 2s, title page; and The Memoirs of Maj. Alexander Ramkins (1719), 1s 6d sewn and 2s bound (Post Boy, issue 4582 [Dec. 6–9, 1718], 2). Longer books might have a greater difference in price, as with The Exiles of the Court of Augustus Caesar (1726), 2s 6d sewn and 3s 6d bound (Evening Post, issue 2604 [March 31–April 2, 1726], 3). 19. Manley, The Adventures of Rivella, title page. 20. Foot, “Some Bookbinders’ Price Lists.” For the original source of these price lists, see Howe, List of London Bookbinders, xxxviii. 21. Feather, Provincial Book Trade, 4. 22. Ferdinand, “Local Distribution Networks,” 136. 23. See the imprint for the Salisbury Journal (for example, issue 324 [April 10, 1744], 4). 24. Houston, Literacy in Early Modern Europe, 140. Notes to Pages 28–34 · 277

25. Backscheider, “Novel’s Gendered Space,” 3. 26. King, “A Scheme of the Income and Expence of the several Families of England, Calculated for the Year, 1688” (1699). 27. For a revision and discussion of King’s table, see Lindert and Williamson, “Revising England’s Social Tables.” 28. Hume, “Economics of Culture in London,” 495. 29. Raven, Business of Books, 91 and 130. 30. See Watt, Rise of the Novel, 41–42, and Warner, Licensing Entertainment, 89, for examples of this. 31. Hammond, Professional Imaginative Writing, 70. 32. For an example of advertisements for this type of publishing, see the 1698 proposal for publishing Cave’s Historia Literaria by subscription and then the subsequent notice that the book has been printed “and ready to be delivered at the Subscription Rates, according to the printed Proposals lately published” (Arber, Term Catalogues, 3.69–70, 88). 33. Wallis, “Book Subscription Lists,” 273. 34. Lockwood, “Subscription-Hunters and Their Prey,” 129. 35. Edmé Boursault, Letters from a Lady of Quality to a Chevalier, trans. Eliza Haywood (1721); Mary Davys, The Reform’d Coquet, A Novel (1724); The Works of Mrs. Davys (1725); Pierre le Pesant, The Life of Mary Stewart, trans. James Freebairn (Edinburgh, 1725). 36. Bunyan, The Works of that Eminent Servant of Christ, Mr. John Bunyan (1692), title page. 37. See Wallis, “Book Subscription Lists,” 260, on the number of subscribers for a single work. 38. Haywood, Love in Excess (1719), 56. 39. [Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 364. 40. Mayo, English Novel in the Magazines, 5. 41. Kay, Short Fiction, 119. 42. For an overview of the practice, see Seager, “Novel’s Afterlife.” 43. St Clair, Reading Nation, 241. 44. Watt notes this in passing: see Rise of the Novel, 43. 45. See Raven, “Libraries for Sociability.” On the development of subscription libraries, see Hamlyn, “Eighteenth-Century Circulating Libraries.” On booksellers lending books, see McKillop, “English Circulating Libraries,” 477. On both topics, see St Clair, Reading Nation, 239–41. 46. Spectator, no. 10, originally published March 12, 1711. Addison and Steele, Spectator, 1.53–54. 47. Watt, Rise of the Novel, 36; Day, Told in Letters, 71. 48. St Clair, Reading Nation, 235. 49. Hoppit, Land of Liberty?, 181. On print runs see Raven, Business of Books, 304, and St Clair, Reading Nation, 180. 50. Ellis, “Coffee-House Libraries,” 30. 51. Treadwell, “London Trade Publishers,” 99. 278 · Notes to Pages 34–42

52. Raven, Business of Books, 127. 53. Wellington bought Bentley’s shares in 380 copyrights after he died. For a list of titles included in the sale, see Mandelbrote, “Richard Bentley’s Copies,” 78–94. 54. Dunton, The Life and Errors of John Dunton (1705), 364. 55. A Full and True Account of a Horrid and Barbarous Revenge by Poison, on the Body of Mr. Edmund Curll (1716); The Secret History of Pythagoras (1721); and The Dumb Projector (1725). 56. Préchac, The Disguis’d Prince, trans. Haywood (1728). 57. Spufford, Small Books and Pleasant Histories, 83–84. 58. The Cabinent Open’d (1690); Gallantry Unmasked (rep., 1690); The Secret History of the Dutchess of Portesmouth (1690); and The Rival Mother (rep., 1692). 59. Term Catalogues, 1.xii. 60. For other booksellers with no discernible pattern to their fiction publications, see William Meadows, A. Bettesworth, T. Warner, and John Nutt. 61. Post Man, And the Historical Account, &c., issue 664 (Sept. 30–Oct. 3, 1699), 2. 62. Daily Courant, issue 783 (Oct. 18, 1704), 2. 63. Philip Ayres, The Revengeful Mistress (1696), Behn, The Histories and Novels (with Briscoe, 1696), A Collection of Pleasant Modern Novels (with Tonson, Rumball, and Wild, 1700), and The Adventures of Lindamira (1702). 64. Books Printed for Richard Wellington, 1. 65. The Case of the Respondent John Poulson: To be heard at the Bar of the House of Lords the 9th Day of May, 1730. Richard Wellington, James Wellington, and Bethel Wellington, Appellants; John Poulson, John Darby, Arthur Bettesworth, and Francis Clay, Respondents (1730), p. 1. The lawsuit arose when Wellington’s widow, Mary, died and her second husband, Poulson, tried to demand her full share of Wellington’s fortune instead of just the £200 she had earmarked for him. The goods and stock had been kept and used by Darby, Bettesworth, and Clay, and they paid an income to Mary Wellington while she lived. 66. Spufford, Small Books and Pleasant Histories, 85–87. 67. Blagden, “Notes on the Ballad Market,” 161. 68. Deloney, The Honour of the Cloathworking Trade (c. 1690), sig. C4v. 69. Plomer, A Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers, 53. 70. See for example Segrais, Five Novels (1725). 71. Evening Post, issue 2192 (Aug.13–15, 1723), 2. 72. Gentleman’s Magazine 6 (1736), 168. 73. Lynch, Jacob Tonson, Kit-Cat Publisher, 105. 74. Advertised in the Post-Man; And The Historical Account, &c., issue 1872 (Feb. 5–7, 1708), 2. 75. Hammond, Professional Imaginative Writing, 69. 76. J. Roberts, J. Morphew, R. Burleigh, J. Baker, and S. Popping, 1716. The other three that are under sixty-five pages are The Secret History of Pythagoras (1721), The Dumb Projector (1725), and The Fair Hebrew (1729). 77. Baines and Rogers, Edmund Curll, Bookseller, 82. 78. The Adventures of the Prince of Clermont (1722), The Life of Madam de BeauNotes to Pages 42–52 · 279

mount (1721), The Strange Adventures of the Count de Vinevil (1721), The Noble Slaves (1722), and The Life and Adventures of the Lady Lucy (1726). 79. Raven, Business of Books, 232. 80. Sher, Enlightenment and the Book, 448. 81. Pollard, Dublin’s Trade in Books, 111, 90, 92–97. 82. Feather, Publishing, Piracy, and Politics, 81. 83. Clair, History of Printing in Britain, 165. 84. One possible exception to this is the bookseller J. Wilson, in Bristol, who advertises Love Triumphant over Duty. A Novel for 6d and The Midnight Revels for 4d (Gloucester Journal, issue 258 [March 14, 1727], 2), but neither of these are listed in the ESTC. 85. These numbers are out of those works of fiction that were reprinted within five years of their original publication. The other cities are Nottingham, Waterford, Banbury, Coventry, Leeds, Worcester, Birmingham, Portsmouth, Oxford, Liverpool, and Westminster. 86. After 1749, book reviews became increasingly common. See Gael, “Origins of the Book Review.” 87. Raven, Business of Books, 257. 88. 10 Anne, c.19. Handover, Printing in London, 138–39. 89. Handover, Printing in London, 134. 90. Tierney, “Advertisements for Books,” 154. 91. Post Boy, issue 5129 ( June 5–7, 1722), 2. 92. Post Man and The Historical Account, issue 766 ( June 18–20, 1700), 2; Evening Post, issue 1676 (April 26–28, 1720), 2. 93. Daily Journal, issue 321 (Feb. 1, 1722), 2. For another example, see the advertisement for The Jilted Bridegroom in the Observator, issue 5.75 (Nov. 30–Dec. 4, 1706), 2. 94. See, for example, the ad for The Adventures of Rivella in the Daily Courant, issue 3937 ( June 7, 1714), 2, or the ad for The Dumb Philosopher in Post Boy, issue 4715 (Oct. 13–15, 1719), 2. 95. Post Man and The Historical Account, issue 11050 (Aug. 21–24, 1714), 2. 96. On Newbery’s advertising strategies, see Buck, “Motives of Puffing.” 97. Post Man and the Historical Account, issue 1557 (Dec. 4–6, 1705), 2. 98. Salzman, English Prose Fiction, 267. 99. Houston, Literacy in Early Modern Europe, 181. 100. By the King a Proclamation Inhibiting all Persons after Bartholomew-tyde next, to use the trade of a pedler or pettie-chapman, vnlesse they be licensed (1618); The Chapmans and Travellers Almanack (1695). 101. Spufford, Small Books and Pleasant Histories, xix. For a list of Pepys’s holdings, see Thompson, “Samuel Pepys’s ‘Penny Merriments,’ ” and the selection of Pepys’s chapbooks edited and reprinted by Thompson (London: Constable, 1976). 102. On the evidence for chapbook readership, see Spufford, Small Books and Pleasant Histories, 45–82. 103. Ashton, Chap-Books, v. 280 · Notes to Pages 53–61

104. Watt, Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 296–97. 105. Deloney, The Pleasant and Princely History of the Gentle-Craft (c. 1690). 106. Cervantes, The History of the Ever-Renowned Knight Don Quixote de la Mancha (c. 1695); The Comical and Tragical History of Fortunatus (c. 1700). Another example of an episodic narrative is Great Britain’s Glory (c. 1697). 107. Bateman’s Tragedy (c. 1700); The Prentice’s Tragedy: Or, The History of George Barnwell (c. 1700). The Prentice’s Tragedy is the same story as George Lillo’s The London Merchant, and both are based on the ballad The Tragedy of George Barnwell. 108. The History of the Most Renowned Queen Elizabeth and Her Great Favorite, the Earl of Essex (1700); The Life and Death of the English Rogue (1700). Only the first part of Queen Elizabeth is from a first-person perspective. 109. The Whole Life and Death of Long Meg (c. 1720). 110. Capp, “Long Meg of Westminster: A Mystery Solved,” 303. 111. The History of the Renowned Northern Worthy, Johnny Armstrong, of Westmoreland (c. 1690), 2. 112. The History of the Blind Beggar of Bednal-Green (c. 1700), sig. B4v-C1r. 113. Rowland, The Famous History of Guy of Warwick (c. 1700); The Gallant History of the Life and Death of that Most Noble Knight, Sir Bevis of Southampton (c. 1691). Spufford notes that “Guy of Warwick originated in a French source round about 1200, and Bevis of Hampton in a thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman romance that probably drew on much earlier popular themes” (Small Books and Pleasant Histories, 225). 114. The Famous and Renowned History of the Two Unfortunate, though Noble Lovers, Hero and Leander (c. 1690). 115. The Prentice’s Tragedy, 3. 116. The Most Famous History of the Learned Fryer Bacon (c. 1700), sig. C4v. 117. The Birth, Life and Death of John Frank (c. 1690), sig. A6r. 118. The Life and Death of Sheffery Morgan (c. 1700), sig. A3r. 119. The Pleasant History of Tom Ladle (c. 1690), 13. 120. Tom Tram of the West, Son-in-Law to Mother Winter (c. 1689), sig. A3r, A6v. 121. Deloney, The Honour of the Cloathworking Trade, sig. C4r–C4v. 122. The Famous and Renowned History of the Memorable but Unhappy Hunting on Chevy-Chase (c. 1690), sig. A1r. 123. Addison, Spectator, no. 74 (May 25, 1711). See also Spectator, no. 70 (May 21, 1711), also on Chevy-Chase. Addison and Steele, Spectator, 1.421. 124. Woodbridge, “Jest Books,” 207. 125. H. C., England’s Jests, 3rd ed. (1693), 6. 126. Dickie, Cruelty and Laughter, 17. 127. England’s Jests is priced at 1s on the title page; W. B., Ingenii Fructus: Or, The Cambridge Jests (1703), also 1s; Pinkethman’s Jests, 2nd ed. (1721), 1s 6d; Polly Peachum’s Jests (1728), 1s. 128. Scogin’s Jests, gathered by Andrew Boorde (c. 1695). Two other examples of jest books in which some jests connect to each other and some are independent are The Merry Frolick (c. 1720), and Joaks upon Joaks (c. 1720). Notes to Pages 61–68 · 281

129. For example, see Ingenii Fructus, sig. A2v, and Neve, The Merry Companion, sig. A2r. 130. For example, see Lewis, English Fable, and Loveridge, History of Augustan Fable. 131. Johnson, Dictionary of the English Language, vol. 1 of 2, “Fable, n.” def. 1 and 2. 132. La Motte, One Hundred New Court Fables, trans. Samber (1721), 17–18. 133. Noel, Theories of the Fable, 36. 134. Dryden, Fables Ancient and Modern; Fénelon, Fables and Dialogues of the Dead; La Fontaine, Fables. La Motte, One Hundred New Court Fables, 68. 135. For example, La Motte’s One Hundred New Court Fables (1721) cost 4s (title page), while Political Fables, with Proper Reflections from the same year cost just 6d (title page). 136. Patterson, Fables of Power, 81–110. 137. R. B., Delightful Fables in Prose and Verse (1691), 118. 138. For an argument about the physical books as the main item bought and sold under copyright laws, see Feather, Publishing, Piracy, and Politics, 58–67; for an argument about the intellectual property as the primary concern, see Rose, Authors and Owners, 4–14. 139. Rose, Authors and Owners, 4; Loewenstein, Author’s Due, 216; Deazley, Right to Copy, xxiii. 140. On the Bible patent, see Handover, Printing in London, 73–97. 141. 8 Anne c. 19, part 4. 142. 8 Anne c. 19, parts 1 and 6. 143. Pollard, Dublin’s Trade in Books, 224. 144. Siebert, Freedom of the Press, 269. 145. Observator, issue 75 ( Jan. 6–9, 1703), 2. The same article also criticizes The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters. 146. Bullard, Politics of Disclosure, 21. 147. For example, see The Secret History of the Duke of Alançon and Q. Elizabeth (1691); Dalerac, Polish Manuscripts: Or, The Secret History of the Reign of John Sobieski (1700); Hypolitus Earl of Douglas . . . with the Secret History of Mack-Beth (1708); and The Secret History of Burgundy (1723).

3. Authors and Anonymous Publication 1. Griffin, “Anonymity and Authorship,” 882. 2. North, Anonymous Renaissance; Love, Scribal Publication. 3. Irish Tales (1716). McBurney, Check List, 36. 4. For earlier examples, see A Looking-Glass for Married People (1704) and An Account of Some Remarkable Passages in the Life of a Private Gentleman (1708). 5. The work referred to here is The Secret History of the Reigns of K. Charles II and K. James II (1690). 6. For example, see The Most Excellent and Famous History of the Most Renowned

282 · Notes to Pages 69–79

Knight Amadis of Greece (1693) and The True Secret History of the Lives and Reigns of all the Kings and Queens of England (1702). 7. For example, see Scarron Incens’d (1694) and Nunnery Tales (1727). 8. Raven, “Historical Introduction,” 1.42–43. 9. For example, The Inhumane Cardinal (1696), says “By a Gentlewoman” on the title page, but the dedication is signed “Mary Pix.” 10. “Anonymity and Authorship,” 879. 11. Raven, “Historical Introduction,” 1.41. Raven’s statistics refer only to new works of fiction, including new translations (but not reprints). 12. Fénelon, The Adventures of Telemachus the Son of Ulysses (1699), sig. A2r. 13. Quevedo, Fortune in Her Wits, trans. Stevens (1697), sig. A5r. 14. Rose, Authors and Owners, 123. 15. For example, The Histories and Novels of the Late Ingenious Mrs. Behn (1696) contains “Memoirs on the Life of Mrs. Behn”; The Oceana and His Other Works by James Harrington (1700) has a “life” of Harrington; and The Works of Mr. de St. Evremont (1700) contains a “character” of Evrémond. 16. Mullan, Anonymity, 286–87. 17. See Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress, Second Part, which was anonymous through the third edition (R. Ponder, 1690) but was printed with Bunyan’s name in 1693. Congreve’s Incognita (1692) was anonymous until an anthology in 1700 named him as the author, and he was listed on the title page thereafter. The first edition of Haywood’s Love in Excess (1719) was anonymous, though she was named on the title page of the second issue and following. 18. Feather, Publishing, Piracy, and Politics, 67. 19. Deazley, Right to Copy, xxiii. 20. Todd, Secret Life of Aphra Behn, 16. 21. Hammond, Professional Imaginative Writing, 48. Milhous and Hume, “Playwrights’ Remuneration,” 53. 22. Bentley, “Copyright Documents,” 76. 23. Feather, “John Nourse and His Authors,” 206. 24. Hume, “Economics of Culture in London,” 510. 25. Baines and Rogers, Edmund Curll, Bookseller, 323. The item in question is one guinea paid to Ann Brome for her husband’s work “The Gentleman Apothecary.” Baines and Rogers cite the Upcott papers as the source for this figure. 26. Day, Told in Letters, 80. 27. For a list of works, see Spedding, Bibliography of Eliza Haywood, appendix G (759–63). The attributions of the works from the 1720s to Haywood are mostly reliable. 28. The Fair Captive (1721), A Wife to be Lett (1724), and Frederick, Duke of Brunswick-Lunenburgh (1729). She spoke the epilogue to A Wife to be Lett. For performance records see Avery, London Stage, part 2 (1960), vol. 2: 618, 731, and 1018. 29. Feather, Publishing, Piracy, and Politics, 67, Rose, Authors and Owners, 49, and Raven, Business of Books, 128–29.

Notes to Pages 79–87 · 283

30. Raven, “Anonymous Novel,” 153. 31. Haywood is named as the author of The British Recluse (1722) and the translator of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots (1725); Aubin as the author of The Life and Adventures of the Lady Lucy (1726) and the translator of The Illustrious French Lovers (1727); and Brown as the author of Letters from the Dead to the Living (1702) and translator of A Looking-Glass for Married People (1704). 32. Evening Post, issue 2192, August 13–15, 1723, pg. 2. 33. Love in Excess sold for 2s 6d (Daily Courant, issue 6351 [Feb. 28, 1722], 2); The British Recluse for 1s 6d (title page); The Injur’d Husband for 2s (title page); The Fair Captive for 1s 6d (Daily Post, issue 462 [March 24, 1721], 2); Idalia for 3s (title page); and Letters from a Lady of Quality to a Chevalier for 2s (title page, 2nd ed.). 34. Exemplarie Novells, in sixe books, trans. Don Diego Puede-Ser (1640), reissued in 1654 by William Sheares as Delight in Severall Shapes. Five of the stories appeared in The Spanish Decameron, trans. R. L. (1687), which was reprinted in 1700, 1712, and 1720. 35. Randall and Boswell, Cervantes in Seventeenth-Century England, xxiv. The translation of this quotation is mine. 36. McBurney comments that the translation has been attributed to Ned Ward, but that he in fact only wrote the introduction (Check List, 19). On Ward’s connection with the text, see Troyer, Ned Ward of Grubstreet, 236–37. 37. The Works of the Famous Mr. Francis Rabelais Doctor of Physick, trans. Urchard (1664). Scarron’s Novels, trans. Davies (1665). Includes The Judge in his Own Cause, The Rival Brothers, The Invisible Mistress, and The Chastisement of Avarice. 38. Aulnoy, The Ingenious and Diverting Letters of the Lady’s———’s [sic] Travels into Spain, 6th ed. (1706). 39. Scarron’s Novels, trans. Davies (1694), sig. A2v. See also The Whole Comical Works of Monsr. Scarron (1700). 40. Palmer, “Madame D’Aulnoy in England,” 239. 41. Quotations from the “Memoirs” here come from the 1696 version. Jane Spencer suggests that Charles Gildon “composed, compiled, or merely commissioned” the “Memoirs” (Aphra Behn’s Afterlife, 34). The fiction in these collections may be spuriously attributed to Behn; see Orr, “Attribution Problems.” 42. Todd, Secret Life of Aphra Behn, 12. See also Todd’s comment that “the story of Aphra Behn . . . must, however, be constructed from the works, for there is almost nowhere else to search” (1). 43. Spencer, Aphra Behn’s Afterlife, 34. 44. Baker, The Companion to the Playhouse (1764), vol. 2, sig. B2r–B3v. 45. Spencer, Aphra Behn’s Afterlife, 39. 46. Todd suggests that this was inserted by Charles Gildon since he signs the dedication to this volume. See Behn, Works of Aphra Behn, 3.272. 47. Kathryn R. King points out that Love Intrigues may have been printed without Barker’s consent ( Jane Barker, Exile, 182–84). If this is the case, its inclusion in her collected works might serve a correcting function. 48. The Lady’s Tale is not listed singly in the ESTC. 284 · Notes to Pages 87–94

49. A True Collection of the Writings of the Author of the True Born English-man (1703), and A Second Volume of the Writings of the Author of the True-Born Englishman (1705). The second volume is priced at 6s on the title page. 50. Beth Lynch, “Darby, John (d. 1704), printer,” ODNB. 51. Price, Anthology and the Rise of the Novel. 52. Printed for J. Watts and sold by W. Mears, J. Brotherton and W. Meadows, W. Chetwood, and J. Lacy. According to the ESTC, the second edition appeared in 1729, printed for John Watts, and a seven-volume fourth edition in 1769–72 (Dublin: James Hoey, Jr.). The other anthologies to which I am referring here are Four Novels (1697); A Collection of Novels (1699); A Collection of Pleasant Modern Novels (1700); A Banquet for Gentlemen and Ladies (1703); and Lovers Tales (1722). 53. See the advertisement in Gueullette, Chinese Tales (1725), vol. 1, sig. a5v–a6r. 54. First edition printed for “Will with the Wisp,” Modern Novels, vol. 1 (1692). This was one of Richard Bentley’s pseudonymous imprints. See Plomer, Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers, 32. 55. Brémond, The Happy Slave (1677); Brémond, The Viceroy of Catalonia, or, The Double Cuckold (1678). 56. Reeve, The Progress of Romance (1785), 1.113, 114, and 117.

4. Reprints of Earlier English Fiction 1. Suarez, “Bibliometric Analysis,” 62. 2. On reprinting, especially in the later eighteenth century, see Bonnell, “Reprint Trade.” 3. Suarez, “Publishing Contemporary English Literature,” 664. Some of the works counted here may have been misattributed to Defoe or Haywood, but the main point is that they were originally published much earlier than 1750 and still remained in demand. 4. This number differs somewhat from the number cited at the beginning of this chapter because that number includes different versions of the same work. That is, there are several different abridgments of some older works, like Faustus, which here are only counted once. 5. McKeon, Origins, 140–50. 6. Salzman, English Prose Fiction, 243. 7. STC, 2nd ed., no. 1987.5; lacking title page and imprint. 8. Syr Beuys of Hampton (c. 1560), 1. 9. Syr Bevis of Hampton (c. 1585), 1. 10. The Gallant History of the Life and Death of that most Noble Knight, Sir Bevis, sig. A2r. 11. A New Ballad of Bold Robin Hood (c. 1695), p. 1. 12. Pollard, Imagining Robin Hood, 222. 13. Knight, “‘Meere English flocks,’ ” 143–44. On the tradition of Robin Hood as a brutal fighter, see Green, “Violence in the Early Robin Hood Poems.” 14. The Noble Birth and Gallant Atchievements, sig. C3v. Notes to Pages 95–109 · 285

15. The chapbook is The Most Pleasant History of Reynard the Fox (c. 1700); the longer version is The History of Reynard the Fox, and Reynardine his Son, In Two Parts (c. 1700). 16. See, for example, the tale of “The Fox and the Coney” about “Reynard” in B. H., The Fables of Young Aesop (1700), 66. 17. The Most Delectable History of Reynard the Fox, title page. 18. Varty, Reynard, Renart, Reinaert, 265. 19. Mish, “Reynard the Fox,” 331. 20. Sands, “Reynard the Fox as Pícaro.” 21. Blake, “Literary Development of the Reynard Story,” 13. 22. Moseley, “Metamorphosis of Sir John Mandeville,” 21. 23. Andrew Fleck notes that there is still debate as to whether a real Mandeville existed, but that “the fictive nature of the Travels’ narrator is widely accepted” (“Here, There, and in Between,” 381 n.9). 24. Bennett, Rediscovery of Sir John Mandeville, 4–5. 25. The Famous and Renowned History of Sir Bevis of Southampton (1689), sig. A2r. 26. Rouse, “For King and Country?,” 117; and Calkin, “Defining Christian Knighthood,” 127. 27. Shurly, The Renowned History of Guy Earl of Warwick (1695), sig. A2r. 28. Smithson, The Famous History of Guy Earl of Warwick (c. 1600), sig. A1v. The 1565 edition is STC number 12542. 29. Valentine and Orson (1694); The Famous and Renowned History of Valentine and Orson (c. 1700). Page references here are to the 1694 edition. 30. A Record of Ancient Histories, Entituled in Latine, Gesta Romanorum (1698), sig. A2v. 31. Doody, The True Story of the Novel; McKeon, Origins; Mentz, Romance for Sale; Pooley, English Prose Fiction of the Seventeenth Century, 17; Barbour, Deciphering Elizabethan Fiction, 141. 32. See The Famous and Remarkable History of Sir Richard Whittington (c. 1680). The ESTC attributes this version to Thomas Heywood, apparently based on a seventy-page version from 1656. Since Heywood died in 1641, there seems to be some inaccuracy in dating the original text, and it may be more seventeenth century than Elizabethan. 33. See “A Song of Sir Richard Whittington,” in A Crowne-Garland of Govlden Roses, ed. Richard Johnson (1612), sig. B5r. 34. Sutton, “Whittington, Richard [Dick] (c. 1350–1423), merchant and mayor of London.” 35. The History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Dr. John Faustus (c. 1696), sig. A3v–A4r. 36. Smeed, Faust in Literature, 110. 37. See Mountfort, The Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, Made into a Farce (1697), but originally from the 1680s (see Hume, “Date of Mountfort’s The Life and Death of Doctor Faustus”). On the comic and serious versions of the story, see Okerlund, “Intellectual Folly of Dr Faustus”; Baron, Doctor Faustus; and Hayden, “Harlequin, the Whigs, and William Mountfort’s Doctor Faustus.” 286 · Notes to Pages 110–118

38. Proudfoot, “Johnson, Richard (fl. 1592–1622), writer,” ODBN. 39. The History of the Seven Wise Masters of Rome (1697), sig. H2v. 40. The classic reading of Deloney and class is Merritt Lawlis, Apology for the Middle Class. On Deloney’s prose style, see Ole Reuter, “Some Aspects of Deloney’s Prose Style.” 41. The Pleasant History of John Winchcomb (c. 1690), sig. D2v. 42. The Honour of the Cloathworking Trade, sig. A3r. 43. Devine, “Unity and Meaning,” 593. 44. Lyly, Euphues, 49; Euphues and Lucilla, 81. 45. Lawlis, Elizabethan Prose Fiction, 112. 46. Maslen, Elizabethan Fictions, 254. 47. Newcomb, Reading Popular Romance, 1. 48. The Works of the Honourable Sr. Philip Sidney, Kt. (1725). Price from imprint. 49. Sidney, The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia (The New Arcadia), ed. Skretkowicz (1987), xxv. For a list of later works in the Arcadia tradition, see Skretkowicz’s introduction, xliii–lii. 50. Pooley, English Prose Fiction, 25. 51. Allen, English Novel, 11, and Hilliard, Singularity of Thomas Nashe, 122, 140–41. 52. Hilliard, Singularity of Thomas Nashe, 22. 53. Furdell, “Boorde, Andrew (c. 1490–1549), physician and author,” ODNB; Maslen, “Afterlife of Andrew Borde.” 54. On the publication history and how Harrington navigated the problems of supporting the republic but going against Cromwell, see Feather, “Publication of James Harrington’s The Commonwealth of Oceana.” 55. Sharp, “Manuscript Versions of Harrington’s Oceana,” 239. 56. Pocock, “James Harrington and the Good Old Cause,” 48. 57. The four questionable works are the chapbooks The History of the Golden Eagle, The History of King Henry the Eighth and a Cobler, The History of King Henry the Eighth and the Abbot of Reading, and Mother Shipton, none of which can be dated with certainty and which claim to derive from the time of Henry VIII. 58. Orr, “The English Rogue.” 59. In the address “to the Christian reader” the writer states, “This most excellent Pattern I commend to the perusal of Youngmen.” Some versions of the title page state that it was printed with “Instructions for Children to be Obedient to their Parents” (Edward Midwinter, c. 1672). 60. For a very distant imitation, see Francis Bugg, The Pilgrim’s Progress, from Quakerism to Christianity (1698). A verse edition of Bunyan’s text was composed by Francis Hoffman (R. Tookey, 1706). 61. For example, see the review of Richard Steele’s The Conscious Lovers that says it is “no Play at all, but a fictitious Allegory, without half the Wit, Sense, or Contrivance of honest John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.” The Freeholder’s Journal, issue 51 (December 12, 1722), 3. 62. Harrison, “Editions of The Pilgrim’s Progress,” 73. 63. For the classic reading of Bunyan’s theology and religion in The Pilgrim’s ProgNotes to Pages 119–130 · 287

ress in particular, see U. Milo Kaufmann, Pilgrim’s Progress and Traditions; also the more recent Kathleen M. Swaim, Pilgrim’s Progress, Puritan Progress. 64. Manlove, “Image of the Journey,” 30. 65. Haskin, “Burden of Interpretation,” 278. 66. Davies, Graceful Reading, 8–9. 67. Leigh, “Narrative, Ritual, and Irony,” 2. 68. Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from this World to That which is to Come, ed. Wharey, rev. Sharrock (1960), 8. Citations to this work refer to this edition. 69. McKeon, Origins, 295; Salzman, English Prose Fiction, 249. 70. First edition (Nathaniel Ponder, 1678). The third edition (Ponder, 1679) also has the same image, but the fifth edition (Ponder, 1680) shows an oval portrait of Bunyan with eyes open and looking off to the side, without the figure of the pilgrim in the background. 71. Bunyan, The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1680), sig. A2r. 72. On Ponder’s life and his legal woes, see Beth Lynch, “Ponder, Nathaniel (1640–1699),” ODNB, and Harrison, “Nathaniel Ponder.” 73. Sharrock, “Life and Death of Mr. Badman,” 15. 74. Austin, “Figural Logic,” 485. 75. For a contemporary example of a different story doing this, see The Secret History of the Duke of Alançon and Q. Elizabeth (1691). 76. London Evening Post, issue 1304 (March 25–27, 1736), 2. 77. For a fuller account of Grey and the scandal, see Greaves, “Grey, Ford, earl of Tankerville (bap. 1655, d. 1701).” 78. For primary information on Grey’s political troubles, see “By the King, A Proclamation for the Apprehending of James Duke of Monmouth, Ford Lord Grey” (1683), and The Tryal of Tho. Pilkington, Esq. . . . Ford Lord Grey of Werk (1683). Love-Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister [verse] (1734). 79. Works of Aphra Behn, 2.325. Although I have disputed the attribution of this work to Behn, this is the most widely used modern edition.

5. Foreign Fiction in English Translation 1. Hopkins and Rogers, “Translator’s Trade,” 81. 2. McMurran, Spread of Novels, 44. 3. Murphy, “Stevens, John (c. 1662–1726).” 4. Cervantes, Select Novels, trans. Walter Pope (1694), sig. A4r. 5. The History of the Most Ingenious Knight Don Quixote de la Mancha, trans. Stevens (1700), vol. 1, sig. A4v. 6. The ESTC notes that no original Spanish title has been traced, but Portonari (who translated the Spanish into Italian) may have used the 1563 work La Historia de los Nobles Cavalleros Oliveros de Castilla y Artus de Algarue, attributed to Felipe de Junta by the Biblioteca Nacional de España. 7. Frontón, “La difusón del Oliveros de Castilla,” 47. 8. Five Love-Letters from a Nun to a Cavalier, trans. L’Estrange (1693). The original 288 · Notes to Pages 130–151

authorship of this work has long been in question: it has mistakenly been attributed to L’Estrange and Mariana Alcoforado. The modern editors make a convincing argument that it is by Gabriel-Joseph de La Vergne, vicomte de Guilleragues (see Guilleragues, Chansons et Bons Mots, 95). 9. Courteault, “Le voyage de Mme d’Aulnoy en Espagne,” 384. Smith, “Travel Narratives and the Familiar Letter Form,” 80. 10. Aulnoy, Diverting Works of the Countess D’Anois, 1.3. 11. For example, The Cabinet Open’d, or the Secret History of the Amours of Madame de Maintenon with the French King (1690); The Palace Royal, or the Amours of the French King and Madam Lavalier (1696); and The Memoires of the Dutchess Mazarine (1699). 12. Present State of Europe, November 1, 1691, p. 415. 13. Another version was printed as The Spanish Pole-Cat, trans. L’Estrange and Ozell (1717). 14. Donna Rosina, sig. A2r. See Alemán, The Rogue: Or, The Life of Guzman de Alfarache, trans. from Spanish (1623). 15. Price from imprint. See The Spanish Rogues: Being the History of Donna Rosina, trans. Edward Walron (1793). 16. Quevedo, Fortune in Her Wits (1697), 8. 17. The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo Villegas, trans. L’Estrange (1696). On imitations of Lucian in the eighteenth century, see Boyce, “News from Hell”; and Keener, English Dialogues of the Dead. For an English reimagining of the Visions in particular, see The New Quevedo (1702). 18. Referring to Scarron’s City Romance (1671), which NCBEL attributes to Antoine Furetière, not Scarron (p. 1513). 19. Fielding, History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, 2.3. 20. Smollett, Adventures of Roderick Random, 1.viii. 21. An Essay on the New Species of Writing founded by Mr. Fielding (1751), 22–23. 22. For example, see The History of Jack Connor (W. Johnston, 1752), 2.6; The Adventurer (1754), 2.377; The Dreamer (1754), 109; and Letters Concerning Taste (1755), 106. 23. Helter Skelter, Or, The Devil upon Two Sticks (1704); Foote, The Devil upon Two Sticks; A Comedy (1778). There is also an eight-page abridgment called The Devil upon two Sticks: Or, The Town Until’d (1708). For other uses of the phrase, see Coffey, The Devil upon Two Sticks (1745) and Combe, The Devil upon Two Sticks in England (1790). 24. The Devil upon Two Sticks, trans. from French, 2 vols. (Berwick: R. Taylor, 1770), I.1. 25. Two excellent examples of this are Ballaster, Fabulous Orients, and Markley, The Far East and the English Imagination. 26. Palmer, “Madame d’Aulnoy in England,” 237. 27. Bottigheimer, “Misperceived Perceptions,” 3. 28. Aulnoy, Diverting Works, 453. 29. Arabian Nights Entertainments, 4th ed. (1713), vol. 1, sig. A3r–v. Notes to Pages 152–164 · 289

30. Moussa-Mahmoud, “English Travellers and the Arabian Nights,” 95. 31. Ballaster, Fabulous Orients, 101. 32. Galland, Arabian Nights Entertainments (1712), 4.147. 33. Galland, Arabian Nights Entertainments (1721), 12.144. 34. Palmeri, “Metamorphoses of Satire,” 240. 35. Translations appeared in 1612, 1687, 1700 (2), and 1742. 36. Eagleton, English Novel, 3–4. 37. Williams, Idea of the Novel, 2–3, 26. 38. Hayes, “Tobias Smollett and the Translators of the Quixote,” 657. 39. Don Quixote, ch. 23. The English translation here is my own. 40. Cervantes, The History of the Valorous and Wittie Knight-Errant, Don Quixote (1612), 204. 41. Cervantes, The Life and Actions of that Ingenious Gentleman, Don Quixote (1725). Price from imprint. 42. Ward, The Life and Notable Adventures of that Renowned Knight, Don Quixote (1711). 43. The ESTC says that The Diverting Works is actually by Montalbán, and that it was translated by Ned Ward (based on the title page claim that it is “With an Introduction by the Author of The London-Spy”). The Continuation says it is by Alonzo Fernandez de Avellaneda, but the ESTC suggests this is a pseudonym. 44. See McKeon, Origins, 275, and Williams, Idea of the Novel, 16–17. 45. On Smollett’s involvement, see Knapp, “Smollett’s Translation of Fénelon’s Télémaque.” For an argument against Smollett’s as the author of the 1776 translation, see Lautel, “1776 Télémaque in English.” Leslie A. Chilton responded to Lautel, arguing for Smollett’s authorship, in “No Posthumous Hoax: Smollett’s Telemachus.” The main basis for the attribution is a copyright receipt signed by him that unequivocally names “the Adventures of Telemachus translated from the French by me Ts. Smollett.” The 1776 Telemachus is included in the standard edition of Smollett’s works, ed. Chilton and O M Brack (Athens: U of Georgia P, 1997). 46. Post Man and the Historical Account, issue 413 ( January 15–18, 1698), 2. 47. Flying Post: Or, The Post-Master, issue 482 ( June 11–14, 1698), 1. 48. Flying Post: Or, The Post-Master, issue 498 ( July 19–21, 1698), 1. 49. Post Man and the Historical Account, issue 646 (August 5–8, 1699), 2. 50. Compare this to the French text: “Calypso ne pouvait se consoler du depart d’Ulysse. Dans sa douleur, elle se trouvait malheureuse d’être immortelle. Sa grotte ne résonnait plus de son chant: les nymphes qui la servaient n’osaient lui parler” (Telemachus, ch. 1). 51. Fénelon, Telemachus, ed. Riley (1994), xvii. 52. Brown, “Emile’s Missing Text.” 53. Paulson, “Models and Paradigms,” 1201–4. 54. Another imitation, by Chansierges, was published in English in 1724. 55. Ramsay, The Life of François de Salignac de la Motte Fénelon (1723). 56. As advertised in the Evening Post, issue 928 ( July 16–19, 1715), 3, and the St. James’s Chronicle, or the British Evening-Post, issue 950 (April 2–4, 1767), 2. 290 · Notes to Pages 165–180

6. Fiction with Purpose 1. Watt’s Rise of the Novel brought Crusoe to the forefront, but the work figures largely in almost every subsequent history of fiction in the eighteenth century. 2. Bogel, Difference Satire Makes, 1–2. 3. Nokes, Raillery and Rage, 22. 4. Knight, Literature of Satire, 203–7. 5. Paulson, Fictions of Satire, 76, and Griffin, Satire, 118. For more on how Paulson sees satire fitting into the history of fiction, see his Satire and the Novel in Eighteenth-Century England. 6. The Admirable and Indefatigable Adventures of the Nine Pious Pilgrims (1707), sig. A3r. 7. Rawson, Satire and Sentiment, 34. 8. Marshall, “Gulliver, Gulliveriana, and the Problem of Swiftian Satire,” 217. 9. Loveman, Reading Fictions, 125. 10. Rabb, Satire and Secrecy, 67–80. 11. Bannet, “‘Secret History,’ ” 377. 12. On the history of early English newspapers, see Sutherland, Restoration Newspaper. 13. See, for example, The Idol of Paris, which is “Written by a Young Lady, now upon her Departure for the New Atalantis” (1710); The Secret History of Queen Zarah, which is “by Way of Appendix to the New Atlantis” (1711); An Appendix to John Bull, which is supposedly “by the Author of the New Atalantis” (1712); and The New Atalantis for the Year 1713, which includes Jane Barker’s Love Intrigues (1713). 14. Richetti, Popular Fiction, 123. 15. Turner, Living by the Pen, 46. 16. The second edition of the first volume and the first edition of the second volume include keys (both John Morphew and J. Woodward, 1709). 17. Ballaster, Seductive Forms, 117; Bullard, Politics of Disclosure, 94. 18. The New Atalantis (1709), ed. Carnell, vol. 2 of Selected Works of Delarivier Manley, 320. 19. Temple, “Manley’s ‘Feigned Scene,’ ” 586. 20. Sargent, “How a Pie Fight Satirizes Whig-Tory Conflict,” 516. For the relevant scene, see New Atalantis, 99–100. 21. Bullard, Politics of Disclosure, 86; Warner, Licensing Entertainment, 98. 22. Carnell, Political Biography of Delarivier Manley, 174–180. 23. Mudge, Whore’s Story, 146. 24. Todd, Sign of Angellica, 90. See also Bannet, “Secret History,” 387, for a similar reading of sex as politics. 25. Spencer, Rise of the Woman Novelist, 58. 26. See pages 95–96, 138–47, and 164–73. 27. Richetti, Popular Fiction, 21. For a similar statement on the wide appeal of The New Atalantis, see Herman, Business of a Woman, 67. 28. Prices from imprints. For the prices of fiction more generally, see chapter 2. Notes to Pages 190–202 · 291

29. On John Bull and the political fable tradition, see Beattie, John Arbuthnot, 92–109. 30. Arbuthnot, The History of John Bull, ed. Bower and Erickson (1976), xxxii. 31. The True Secret History of the Lives and Reigns of all the Kings and Queens of England (1702), sig. A2r. For other examples of works that targeted historical figures, see The Secret History of the Duke of Alançon and Q. Elizabeth: A True History (1691), which makes Elizabeth seem petty and licentious; The French King Proved a Bastard (1691), which is about the affairs of Anne of Austria (wife of Louis XIII); and The Inhumane Cardinal (1696), which satirizes Pope Innocent X (1574–1655) as being controlled by his mistress. 32. As advertised in the Daily Journal, issue 1298 (Mon., March 15, 1725), 2. 33. Two examples of secret histories with very vague political targets are The Northern Atalantis: Or, York Spy: Displaying the Secret Intrigues and Adventures of the Yorkshire Gentry (1713), which seems to target types of people (sheriffs, criminals, Quakers) but not individuals; and The German Atalantis: Being, A Secret History of Many Surprizing Intrigues, and Adventures Transacted in Several Foreign Courts (1715), which has a love-story plot like Woman’s Malice. 34. The History of Prince Mirabel’s Infancy, Rise, and Disgrace [in Britomartia] (1712); The History of the Proceedings of the Mandarins and Proatins of the Britomartian Empire, 2nd ed. (1713); A New Voyage to the Island of Fools (1713); The Impartial Secret History of Arlus, Fortunatus, and Odolphus (1710); The Testimonies of Several Citizens of Fickleborough (1713); and The Present State of Fairy-Land (1713). 35. The Perquisite-Monger (1712); The Persian Cromwell (1724); and The History of the Rise and Fall of Count Hotspur [in Etruria] (1717). 36. See The Devil of a Whigg (1708), and, to a lesser extent, The Secret History of the October Club (1711). 37. There are two Dublin editions, in 1725 and 1758. 38. Swift, A Tale of a Tub and Other Works, ed. Marcus Walsh (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010), xlvii. All citations in this section are to this edition. 39. The Fairy Feast, Written by the Author of A Tale of a Tub and The Mully of Mountown (1704); Liberty of Conscience . . . Dedicated to the most Learned Author of the Tale of a Tub (1704). 40. Mueller, “Writing under Constraint,” 101. 41. See, for example, The Tale of a Tub, Revers’d (1705); A New Tale of a Tub (c. 1710); and A Second Tale of a Tub (1715). 42. The standard study of the religious background for A Tale is Philip Harth, Swift and Anglican Rationalism. For a discussion of this issue arguing that Swift “may uphold the Church of England, but not in the manner of those clerical apologists who sought to authorize their arguments by learned dissertations on metaphysics,” see David Bywaters, “Anticlericalism in Swift’s Tale of a Tub,” 599. For a more recent take on Swift’s religion, see Hugh Ormsby-Lennon, Hey Presto! Swift and the Quacks. 43. Sherbo, “Swift and Travel Literature.” On the travel literature of the period, see Edwards, Story of the Voyage.

292 · Notes to Pages 202–210

44. Swift, Travels into Several Remote Nations (1726), 1.147. 45. For an overview of Lucianic imitation in this period, including Brown’s Letters, see Boyce, “News from Hell.” An anonymous imitation of Brown continued his use of the trope to satirize modern England: see Letters from the Living to the Living (1703). 46. Although traditionally attributed to Defoe, there is reason to doubt his authorship based on the lack of external evidence and the differences between Mrs. Veal and Defoe’s treatment of ghosts elsewhere. For the argument against Defoe’s authorship, see Starr, “Why Defoe Probably Did Not Write The Apparition of Mrs. Veal”; for the case in favor of Defoe, see Walton, “On the Attribution of Mrs. Veal.” 47. Crusoe figures prominently in Watt’s Rise of the Novel, as well as Baker’s History of the English Novel and McKeon’s Origins. Almost every literary history of fiction treats it at least briefly. Page references here are to the first edition (W. Taylor, 1719). 48. The two classic studies of Crusoe’s religious conversion are Starr, Defoe and Spiritual Autobiography, and Hunter, Reluctant Pilgrim. 49. Orr, “Providence and Religion.” 50. Seager, “Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics,” 640. 51. Mayer, “Reception of A Journal of the Plague Year.” 52. The Dreadful Visitation (1763). 53. Dowdell, “American Hermit and the British Castaway,” 135. 54. Walmsley, “Whigs in Heaven,” 326. 55. Spencer, Rise of the Woman Novelist, 81; Turner, Living by the Pen, 48. 56. Richetti, Popular Fiction, 245. 57. King, Jane Barker, Exile, 20. 58. Barker, Entertaining Novels, 2nd ed. (A. Bettesworth and E. Curll, 1719). Price from imprint. The third edition (1736) was also 5s.

7. Fiction for Entertainment 1. Starr, Defoe and Casuistry, v. 2. Newman, “Property, History, and Identity in Defoe’s Captain Singleton,” 565. 3. Greene, “Captain Singleton,” 418; Gregg, “Male Friendship and Defoe’s Captain Singleton,” 204. For an extended discussion of this topic in its broader historical contexts, see also Gregg, Defoe’s Writings and Manliness. 4. Turley, “Piracy, Identity, and Desire in Captain Singleton,” 200. For this argument in a fuller context, see Turley, Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash. 5. Boulukos, “Daniel Defoe’s Colonel Jack,” 625. 6. G. Cervantes, “Episodic or Novelistic,” 249. 7. G. Cervantes, “Convict Transportation and Penitence”; Ganz, “Moll Flanders and English Marriage Law”; and Swaminathan, “Defoe’s Alternative Conduct Manual,” 186. 8. McKillop, Early Masters of English Fiction, 28; Baker, History of the English Novel, 190.

Notes to Pages 211–233 · 293

9. On irony and Moll Flanders, see Columbus, “Conscious Artistry,” and Koonce, “Moll’s Muddle.” 10. Richetti, Popular Fiction, 72. 11. See, for example, The Irish Rogue (1690) and Memoirs Concerning the Life and Manners of Captain Mackheath (1728). 12. For example, see The Perfidious P——(1702) and The Jilted Bridegroom (1706). 13. Seager, “1740 Roxana.” 14. See the following examples of articles focusing on Roxana’s ending: Hume, “Conclusion to Defoe’s Roxana”; Griffin, “Text in Motion”; Molesworth, “‘A Dreadful Course of Calamities’”; and Healey, “‘A Perfect Retreat Indeed.’” 15. Spielman, “Value of Money,” 84. 16. Starr, Defoe and Casuistry, 189. 17. Gollapudi, “Virtuous Voyages,” 681. 18. Richetti, Popular Fiction, 211; Spencer, Rise of the Woman Novelist, 88. 19. Mounsey, “‘. . . bring her naked from her Bed,’ ” 59. 20. Baepler, “Barbary Captivity Narrative.” 21. Advertised in The Monthly Catalogue: Being A General Register of Books, vol. 2 ( John Wilford, 1726), 27. 22. On fact and fiction in Memoirs of a Cavalier, see Seager, “‘A Romance the likest to Truth.’” On the narrator’s ambiguity, see Alker, “Soldierly Imagination.” 23. For examples of this type of argument, see Jack, “New Voyage round the World”; Markley, “‘So Inexhaustible a Treasure of Gold’”; Rummell, “Defoe and the Black Legend”; and Furbank and Owens, “Defoe’s ‘South-Sea’ and ‘North-Sea’ Schemes.” 24. The four most reprinted are The Histories and Novels of Aphra Behn (1696); Haywood, Love in Excess (1719) and The Injur’d Husband (1723); and Davys, The Reform’d Coquet (1724). 25. For another example of a love tragedy with an inconclusive ending, see The Player’s Tragedy (1693). 26. For other examples of love tragedies like this, see Craufurd, Several Letters; Containing the Amours of: The Unfortunate Dutchess; Love After Enjoyment; and The Unhappy Mistake (1700), and Haywood, The Rash Resolve (1724). 27. For another example of a female villain and a no-win ending, see Love upon Tick (1724), in which none of the characters ends up happy. 28. This story is printed with The Secret History of the Prince of the Nazarenes and Two Turks (1719). 29. The two Aubin works I counted in the “amorous fiction” section are The Life and Amorous Adventures of Lucinda (1722) and The Life of Charlotta Du Pont (1723), but an argument could be made that these and her other works could go in either section. 30. For other examples of different kinds of amorous tales bound together, see Manley, The Power of Love (1720); Chamberlen, Love in its Empire (1721); and Lovers Tales (1722). 31. See Haywood, Idalia (1723), and The Prude (1726) for other examples of complex plots. 294 · Notes to Pages 235–261

Conclusion 1. Le Noble, The Cabinet Open’d; Bellon, The Reviv’d Fugitive; Lisarda; and The Great Scanderberg. 2. Marschalk, Porch, and Backscheider, “Empty Decade,” 377. 3. Aubin, A Collection of Entertaining Histories and Novels (1739). 4. Beasley, Novels of the 1740s, vii–viii. 5. General Advertiser, issue 5427 (March 11, 1752), 4.

Notes to Pages 265–269 · 295

Bibliography of Works Cited

Anonymous works are alphabetized by title. Only the first three publishers from an imprint are listed here. Places of publication are London unless otherwise noted. Suggested dates for undated works are from the ESTC.

Primary An Account of Some Remarkable Passages in the Life of a Private Gentleman ( J. Downing, 1708). [Addison, Joseph, and Richard Steele]. The Spectator, 8 vols. (S. Buckley and J. Tonson, 1712–15). The Admirable and Indefatigable Adventures of the Nine Pious Pilgrims (R. Hartley, 1707). The Adventurer, 2 vols. ( J. Payne, 1753–54). The Adventures of Covent-Garden (H. Hills for R. Standfast, 1699). The Adventures of Lindamira (R. Wellington, 1702). The Adventures of the Helvetian Hero (R. Taylor, 1694). The Adventures of John Le-Brun, 2 vols. (G. Hawkins and J. James, 1739). The Adventures of the Prince of Clermont, trans. from French, 2 vols. (E. Bell and others, 1722). Alemán, Matheo. The Rogue: Or The Life of Guzman de Alfarache, trans. from Spanish (Edward Blount, 1623). The Amours of Philantus and Bellamond (F. Saunders, 1690). An Appendix to John Bull ( J. Morphew, 1712). Arbuthnot, John. The History of John Bull, ed. Alan W. Bower and Robert A. Erickson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976). The Art of Cuckoldom (no publisher, 1697). The Art of Pleasing in Conversation, trans. from French (R. Bentley, 1691). Aubin, Penelope. A Collection of Entertaining Histories and Novels, 3 vols. (D. Midwinter and others, 1739). ———. The Life and Adventures of the Lady Lucy ( J. Darby and others, 1726). ———. The Life and Amorous Adventures of Lucinda, an English Lady (E. Bell and others, 1722). ———. The Life of Charlotta Du Pont, an English Lady (A. Bettesworth, 1723).

297

———. The Life of Madam de Beaumount (E. Bell and others, 1721). ———. The Noble Slaves (E. Bell and others, 1722). ———. The Strange Adventures of the Count de Vinevil and his Family (E. Bell and others, 1721). [Aulnoy, Marie-Catherine d’]. The Diverting Works of the Countess D’Anois ( J. Nicholson and others, 1707). ———. The Ingenious and Diverting Letters of the Lady———’s Travels into Spain (S. Crouch, 1691). ———. The Ingenious and Diverting Letters of the Lady———’s Travels into Spain (S. Crouch, 1706). ———. The Present Court of Spain, trans. J. P. (H. Rhodes and J. Harris, 1693). Ayres, Philip. The Revengeful Mistress (R. Wellington, 1696). B., E. The Highland Rogue: Or, The Memorable Actions of the Celebrated Robert MacGregor, Commonly called Rob-Roy ( J. Billingsley and others, 1723). B., R. Delightful Fables in Prose and Verse (N. Crouch, 1691). ———. The History of the Nine Worthies of the World (N. Crouch, 1687, rep. 1695). ———. Unparallel’d Varieties, 3rd ed. (N. Crouch, 1699). ———. Wonderful Prodigies of Judgment and Mercy, 5th ed. (N. Crouch, 1699). B., W. Ingenii Fructus: Or, The Cambridge Jests, 3rd ed. (W. Spiller, 1703). A Banquet for Gentlemen and Ladies Consisting of Nine Comick and Tragick Novels, 2nd impression (B. Harris, 1703). Barker, Jane. The Entertaining Novels of Mrs. Jane Barker, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (A. Bettesworth and E. Curll, 1719). ———. Exilius: Or, The Banish’d Roman, A New Romance (E. Curll, 1715). ———. Love Intrigues (E. Curll and C. Crownfield, 1713). Bateman’s Tragedy (C. Brown and T. Norris, c. 1700). Behn, Aphra. The Histories and Novels of the Late Ingenious Mrs. Behn (S. Briscoe, 1696). ———. The Works of Aphra Behn, ed. Janet Todd, 7 vols. (London: Pickering and Chatto; Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1992–96). The Birth, Life and Death of John Frank ( J. M. for J. Deacon, c. 1690). Boorde, Andrew. The Merry Tales of the Mad-Men of Gotam ( J. R. for G. Conyers and J. Deacon, c. 1690). ———. Scogin’s Jests (W. Thackeray and J. Deacon, c. 1695). Boulainvilliers, Henri. The Life of Mahomet (W. Hinchcliffe, 1731). [Boursault, Edmé]. Letters from a Lady of Quality to a Chevalier, trans. Eliza Haywood (W. Chetwood, 1721). Brémond, Gabriel de. The Happy Slave ( J. Magnes and R. Bentley, 1677). ———. The Pilgrim, trans. P. Belon (R. Wellington and E. Rumball, 1700). ———. The Viceroy of Catalonia, trans. James Morgan ( J. B. for J. Magnes and R. Bentley, 1678). Brown, Thomas. Letters from the Dead to the Living (no publisher, 1702). Bugg, Francis. The Pilgrim’s Progress, from Quakerism to Christianity (W. Kettleby, 1698). 298 · Bibliography

Bunyan, John. The Holy War (D. Newman and B. Alsop, 1682; rep. N. Ponder, 1696). ———. The Life and Death of Mr. Badman ( J. A. for N. Ponder, 1680). ———. The Pilgrim’s Progress from this World to That which is to Come, ed. James Blanton Wharey, rev. Roger Sharrock (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960). ———. The Pilgrim’s Progress . . . Second Part, 3rd ed. (R. Ponder, 1690). ———. The Works of that Eminent Servant of Christ, Mr. John Bunyan (W. Marshall, 1692). “By the King, A Proclamation for the Apprehending of James Duke of Monmouth, Ford Lord Grey,” and others ( J. Bill, H. Hills, and T. Newcomb, 1683). C., H. England’s Jests Refin’d and Improv’d, 3rd ed. ( J. Harris, 1693). The Cabinet Open’d, or The Secret History of the Amours of Madam de Maintenon, with the French King, trans. from French (R. Baldwin, 1690). Cervantes, Miguel de. Delight in Severall Shapes, Drawne to the Life in Six Pleasant Histories (W. Sheares, 1654). ———. The History of the Ever-Renowned Knight Don Quixote de la Mancha (W. O. for H. Green, c. 1695). ———. The History of the Most Ingenious Knight Don Quixote de la Mancha, trans. John Stevens, 2 vols. (R. Chiswell and others, 1700). ———. The History of the Renown’d Don Quixote de la Mancha, trans. “several hands,” 4 vols. (S. Buckley, 1700). ———. The History of the Valorous and Wittie Knight-Errant, Don Quixote, trans. Thomas Shelton (W. Stansby for E. Blount and W. Barret, 1612). ———. The Life and Actions of that Ingenious Gentleman, Don Quixote (T. Woodward and J. Peele, 1725). ———. Select Novels, trans. Walter Pope (C. Brome and T. Horne, 1694). Chamberlen, Paul. Love in Its Empire, Illustrated in Seven Novels (B. Creake and others, 1721). The Character of Love, trans. from French (R. Bentley, 1686). The City Jilt ( J. Roberts, 1726). Coffee-House Jests (B. Thrale, 1677). Coffey, Charles. The Devil upon Two Sticks: Or, The Country Beau, A Ballad Farce of One Act (G. Spavan, 1745). A Collection of Novels: viz. The Secret History of the Earl of Essex and Queen Elizabeth, The Happy Slave, and The Double Cuckold, To which is added, The Art of Pleasing in Conversation (R. Wellington and E. Rumball, 1699). A Collection of Pleasant Modern Novels ( J. Tonson and others, 1700). [Combe, William]. The Devil upon Two Sticks in England, 4 vols. (Logographic Press for J. Walter and W. Richardson, 1790). The Comical and Tragical History of Fortunatus (C. Brown, c. 1700). The Comical History of Estevanille Gonzalez, trans. from French (W. Mears and others, 1735). The Compleat Mendicant (E. Harris, 1699). The Conduct of Christians Made the Sport of Infidels (S. Baker, 1717). Congreve, William. Incognita: Or, Love and Duty Reconcil’d, A Novel (P. Buck, 1692). Bibliography · 299

Court Tales: Or, A History of the Amours of the Present Nobility ( J. Roberts, 1717). Cox, H. Lisarda; Or, The Travels of Love and Jealousy, A Novel ( J. Knight, 1690). Craufurd, David. Several Letters; Containing the Amours of: The Unfortunate Dutchess; Love after Enjoyment; and The Unhappy Mistake ( J. Austin, 1700). D., L. M. Memoirs of the Court of France (R. Bentley and T. Bennett, 1692). [Dalerac, François Paulin]. Polish Manuscripts: Or The Secret History of the Reign of John Sobieski, trans. from French (H. Rhodes and others, 1700). Davys, Mary. The Northern Heiress (H. Meere and others, 1716). ———. The Reform’d Coquet (H. Woodfall for J. Stevens, 1724). ———. The Works of Mrs. Davys, 2 vols. (H. Woodfall for J. Stevens, 1725). [Defoe, Daniel.] A Collection of the Writings of the Author of the True-Born English-man (no publisher, 1703). ———. The Consolidator (B. Bragg, 1705). ———. The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (W. Taylor, 1719). ———. A Journal of the Plague Year (E. Nutt and others, 1722). ———. The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner (W. Taylor, 1719). ———. A Second Volume of the Writings of the Author of the True-Born Englishman (no publisher, 1705). ———. Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe: With His Vision of the Angelick World (W. Taylor, 1720). De Gomez, Madeleine-Angélique. The Persian Anecdotes, trans. Paul Chamberlen (W. Bickerton, 1730). [Deloney, Thomas]. The Honour of the Cloathworking Trade: Or, The Pleasant and Famous History of Thomas of Reading ( J. Deacon, c. 1690). ———. The Pleasant and Princely History of the Gentle-Craft (H. Rhodes, c. 1690). ———. The Pleasant History of John Winchcomb (W. Wilde for T. Passenger and W. Thackeray, c. 1690). The Devil of a Whigg: Or, Zarazian Subtilty Detected (no publisher, 1708). The Distress’d Orphan, Or, Love in a Mad-House ( J. Roberts, 1726). The Double Marriage: Or, The Fatal Release ( J. Roberts, 1726). The Dreadful Visitation (Germantown [PA]: C. Sower, 1763). The Dreamer (W. Owen, 1754). Drelincourt, Charles. The Christian’s Defence Against the Fears of Death, trans. Marius d’Assigny, 5th ed. (W. S. for R. Clavel and others, 1707). Dryden, John. Fables Ancient and Modern ( J. Tonson, 1700). The Dumb Philosopher; Or Great Britain’s Wonder (T. Bickerton, 1719). The Dutch Whore (no publisher, 1690). Elysium: Or, The State of Love and Honour in the Superior Regions of Bliss (F. Thompson and others, 1702). Entertainments of Gallantry ( J. Morphew, 1712). Evans, Ambrose. The Adventures, and Surprizing Deliverances, of James Dubourdieu and His Wife ( J. Bettenham for A. Bettesworth and others, 1719).

300 · Bibliography

Exemplarie Novells, in sixe books, trans. Don Diego Puede-Ser ( J. Dawson for R. M. and L. Blaicklocke, 1640). The Fairy Feast (no publisher, 1704). The Famous and Delightful History of The Golden Eagle (W. O., c. 1700). The Famous and Remarkable History of Sir Richard Whittington (W. Thackeray and T. Passinger, c. 1680). The Famous and Renowned History of Sir Bevis of Southampton (W. Thackeray and J. Deacon, 1689). The Famous and Renowned History of the Memorable but Unhappy Hunting on ChevyChase (W. O., c. 1700). The Famous and Renowned History of the Two Unfortunate, though Noble Lovers, Hero and Leander (A. Milbourn for J. Blare, c. 1690). The Famous and Renowned History of Valentine and Orson (W. O. for C. Bates, c. 1700). Female Falsehood: Or, The Unfortunate Beau, trans. from French (E. Whitlock, 1697). The Female Politician: Or, The Statesman Unmask’d ( J. Wilford, 1733). Fénelon, François. The Adventures of Telemachus, trans. John Hawkesworth (W. and W. Strahan, 1768). ———. The Adventures of Telemachus the Son of Ulysses (A. and J. Churchill, 1699). ———. Fables and Dialogues of the Dead, trans. John Ozell (W. Chetwood and S. Chapman, 1722). ———. Telemachus, ed. Patrick Riley (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994). [Fielding, Henry.] The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, 2 vols. (A. Millar, 1742). Five Love-Letters Written by a Cavalier (R. Bentley, 1694). Foote, Samuel. The Devil upon Two Sticks; A Comedy (T. Sherlock for T. Cadell, 1778). The Forced Virgin; Or, The Unnatural Mother (W. Trott, 1730). Ford, Emanuel. The Famous History of Montelion (W. O. for E. Tracy and C. Bates, c. 1695). ———. The Most Famous, Delectable, and Pleasant History of Parismus, 2 vols. (W. Wilde, 1696). The Fortunate Mistress [Roxana] (T. Warner and others, 1724). The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (W. Chetwood and T. Edling, 1721 [for 1722]). Four Novels (F. Saunders, 1697). The Four Years Voyages of Capt. George Roberts (A. Bettesworth and J. Osborn, 1726). The French King Proved a Bastard: Or The Amours of Anne, 2nd ed. (A. Roper, 1691). A Full and True Account of a Horrid and Barbarous Revenge by Poison, On the Body of Mr. Edmund Curll ( J. Roberts and others, [1716]). Galland, Antoine. Arabian Nights Entertainments, 2 vols. (A. Bell, 1706). ———. Arabian Nights Entertainments, “4th ed.,” 4 vols. (A. Bell, 1713).

Bibliography · 301

———. Arabian Nights Entertainments, 12 vols. (W. Taylor, W. Chetwood, and J. Chapman, 1721–22). The Gallant History of the Life and Death of that Most Noble Knight, Sir Bevis of Southampton (A. M. for J. Deacon, c. 1691). The Generous Rivals, Or, Love Triumphant ( J. Applebee for J. Morphew, 1711). The German Atalantis (no publisher, 1715). The Golden Spy ( J. Woodward and J. Morphew, 1709). Great Britain’s Glory: Being the History of King Arthur (W. O., c. 1700). The Great Scanderberg, trans. from French (R. Bentley, 1690). Greene, Robert. Pandosto (Thomas Orwin for Thomas Cadman, 1588). ———. The Pleasant History of Dorastus and Fawnia (J. W. for George Conyers, 1690). [Gueullette, Thomas-Simon]. Chinese Tales, 2 vols. ( J. Brotherton and W. Meadows, 1725). ———. A Thousand and One Quarters of Hours; Being Tartarian Tales ( J. Tonson, 1716). [Guilleragues, Gabriel-Joseph de La Vergne, vicomte de]. Five Love-Letters from a Nun to a Cavalier, trans. Roger L’Estrange (R. Bentley, 1693). H., B. The Fables of Young Aesop, 4th ed. (B. Harris, 1700). H., M. [Mary Hearne]. The Lover’s Week: Or, The Six Days Adventures of Philander and Amaryllis (E. Curll and R. Francklin, 1718). Hanover Tales: Or, The Secret History of Count Fradonia and the Unfortunate Baritia (no publisher, 1715). Harrington, James. The Commonwealth of Oceana (D. Pakeman, 1656). ———. The Oceana and His Other Works (no publisher, 1700). Haywood, Eliza. The British Recluse (D. Brown and others,1722). ———. Cleomelia ( J. Millan, J. Roberts, and H. Northoock, 1727). ———. The Fair Captive (T. Jauncy and H. Cole, 1721). ———. Frederick, Duke of Brunswick-Lunenburgh (W. Mears and J. Brindley, 1729). ———. Idalia (D. Browne, W. Chetwood, and S. Chapman, 1723). ———. The Injur’d Husband (D. Brown and others, 1723). ———. Love in Excess, 3 parts (W. Chetwood, R. Francklin, and J. Roberts, 1719–20). ———. Love-Letters on All Occasions ( J. Brindley and others, 1730). ———. The Rash Resolve (D. Browne and S. Chapman, 1724). ———. The Tea-Table ( J. Roberts, 1725) ———. A Wife to be Lett (D. Browne and S. Chapman, 1724). ———. The Works of Mrs. Eliza Haywood, 4 vols. (D. Browne and S. Chapman, 1724). [Head, Richard]. The English Rogue (H. Marsh, 1665). ———. The Life and Death of Mother Shipton (B. Harris, 1677). Helter Skelter: Or, The Devil upon Two Sticks (no publisher, 1704). An Historical Romance of the Wars, between the Mighty Giant Gallieno, and the Great Knight Nasonius (Dublin: no publisher, 1694). The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Col. Jacque ( J. Brotherton and others, 1723 [for 1722]). The History of Autonous ( J. Roberts, 1736). 302 · Bibliography

The History of the Blind Beggar of Bednal-Green ( J. Blare, c. 1700). The History of Cardinal Alberoni (S. Illidge, T. Corbet, and H. Riboteau, 1719). The History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Dr. John Faustus, trans. P. R. (W. O. for J. Back, c. 1696). The History of Jack Connor, 2 vols. (W. Johnston, 1752). The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell (E. Curll and others, 1720). The History of the Most Renowned Queen Elizabeth, and Her Great Favourite, the Earl of Essex (W. O. for C. Bates, c. 1700). The History of Olivaires of Castile, and Arthur of Dalgrave, trans. Mark Micklethwait (A. and J. Churchill, 1695). The History Political and Gallant of the Famous Cardinal Portocarrero (W. R. for John Nutt, 1704). The History of Prince Mirabel’s Infancy, Rise and Disgrace ( J. Baker, 1712). The History of the Proceedings of the Mandarins and Proatins of the Britomartian Empire, 2nd ed. (no publisher, 1713). The History of the Renowned Northern Worthy, Johnny Armstrong (T. Norris, c. 1690). The History of Reynard the Fox, and Reynardine his Son (no publisher, c. 1700). The History of the Rise and Fall of Count Hotspur (T. Moor, 1717). The History of the Seven Wise Masters of Rome ( J. W. for G. Conyers, 1697). Hypolitus Earl of Douglas ( J. Woodward, 1708). The Idol of Paris ( J. Baker, [1710]). The Illustrious French Lovers, trans. Penelope Aubin, 2 vols. ( J. Darby and others, 1727). The Impartial Secret History of Arlus, Fortunatus, and Odolphus, Ministers of State to the Empress of Grand-Insula (no publisher; 1710). The Inhumane Cardinal ( John Harding and Richard Wilkin, 1696). The Irish Rogue (G. Conyers, c. 1690). Irish Tales (E. Curll and J. Hooke, 1716). The Jamaica Lady: Or, The Life of Bavia (T. Bickerton, 1720). Joaks upon Joaks (T. Norris, c. 1720). Johnson, Charles. A General History of the Pyrates, 2nd ed. (T. Warner, 1724). ———. The History and Lives of all the Most Notorious Pirates (E. Midwinter, 1725). ———. The History of the Life and Intrigues of that Celebrated Courtezan, and Posture-Mistress, Eliz. Mann (A. Moore, 1724). Johnson, Richard. A Crowne-Garland of Govlden Roses (G. Eld for I. Wright, 1612). ———. The Famous History of the Seven Champions of Christendom (R. Chiswell and others, 1696). Keach, Benjamin. The Progress of Sin; Or, the Travels of Ungodliness, 3rd ed. (N. Boddington, 1700). ———. The Travels of True Godliness, 3rd ed. ( J. Dunton, 1684, rep. 1700). Kent, Robert. A Timely Warning to Rash and Disobedient Children (Edinburgh: no publisher, 1721). L., S. The Amours of Philario and Olinda (F. Cogan, 1730). Bibliography · 303

[La Calprenède, Gauthier de Coste]. Hymen’s Praeludia: Or, Love’s Master-Piece [Cleopatra] (R. Smith, 1698). La Croix, François Pétis de. Turkish Tales ( Jacob Tonson, 1708). La Fontaine, Jean de. Fables choisies (P. and I. Vaillant, 1708). La Motte, Antoine Houdar de. One Hundred New Court Fables, trans. Robert Samber (E. Curll and T. Jauncy, 1721). Le Noble, Eustache. Abra-Mulè: Or, A True History of the Dethronement of Mahomet IV, trans. J. P. (R. Clavel, 1696). [Le Pesant, Pierre]. The Life of Mary Stewart, Queen of Scotland and France, trans. James Freebairn (Edinburgh: no publisher, 1725). Letters Concerning Taste (R. and J. Dodsley, 1755). [Le Sage, Alain-René]. The History and Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, 2 vols. ( J. Tonson, 1716). ———. The Devil upon Two Sticks, 2 vols. (Berwick: R. Taylor, 1770). ———. Le Diable Boiteux: Or, The Devil upon Two Sticks ( J. Tonson, 1708). Liberty of Conscience, or Religion a la Mode (no publisher, 1704). The Life, Adventures, and Pyracies, of the Famous Captain Singleton ( J. Brotherton and others, 1720). The Life and Adventures of Capt. John Avery ( J. Baker, 1709). The Life and Death of the English Rogue (E. Tracy, c. 1700). The Life and Death of Sheffery Morgan, Son of Shon ap Morgan (C. Brown for S. Deacon, c. 1700). The Life of Donna Rosina, A Novel, trans. Edward Wood (B. Harris, c. 1700). Longueville, Peter. The Hermit: Or, the Unparalleled Sufferings and Surprising Adventures of Mr. Philip Quarll (Westminster: J. Cluer and others, 1727). A Looking-Glass for Married People, trans. Thomas Brown, published with Marriage Ceremonies, 3rd ed. ( J. Nutt, 1704). Love in Distress: Or, The Lucky Discovery, A Novel (W. Onley and others, 1697). Love-Letters between a Certain Late Nobleman and the Famous Mr. Wilson (A. Moore, [1723]). Love-Letters between a Noble-Man and His Sister, 3 vols. (R. Taylor and others, 1684–87). Love-Letters between a Nobleman and His Sister, 2nd ed. [verse] (Charles Corbett, 1734). Lovers Tales: In Several New Surprising and Diverting Stories (T. Warner, 1722). Love upon Tick: Or, Implicit Gallantry ( J. Billingsley and others, 1724). Lucas, Theophilus. Memoirs of the Lives, Intrigues, and Comical Adventures of the Most Famous Gamesters and Celebrated Sharpers ( J. Brown and F. Burleigh, 1714). Lyly, John. Euphues, The Anatomy of Wyt (G. Cawood, [1578]). ———. Euphues and Lucilla: Or The False Friend and Inconstant Mistress ( J. Noon and T. Sharpey, 1716). Madagascar: Or, Robert Drury’s Journal (W. Meadows and others, 1729). Manley, Delarivier. The Adventures of Rivella; Or, The History of the Author of the Atalantis (no publisher, 1714). 304 · Bibliography

———. Memoirs of Europe, Towards the Close of the Eighth Century, 2 vols. ( J. Morphew, 1710). ———. The Power of Love: In Seven Novels ( J. Barber and J. Morphew, 1720). ———. Selected Works of Delarivier Manley, ed. Rachel Carnell and Ruth Herman, 5 vols. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2005). Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots: Being the Secret History of her Life, trans. Eliza Haywood (D. Browne and others, 1725). The Matchless Rogue (A. Moore, 1725). The Memoires of the Dutchess Mazarine, trans. P. Porter, 3rd impression (R. Bentley, 1690). Memoirs Concerning the Life and Manners of Captain Mackheath (A. Moore, 1728). Memoirs of a Cavalier: Or A Military Journal of The Wars in Germany, and The Wars in England (A. Bell and others, [1720]). Memoirs of a Certain Island Adjacent to the Kingdom of Utopia (no publisher, 1725). The Memoirs of an English Officer, who Serv’d in the Dutch War in 1672 to the Peace of Utrecht, in 1713 (E. Symon, 1728). The Memoirs of Maj. Alexander Ramkins (R. King and W. Boreham, 1719). The Memoirs of the Marq. de Langallerie, trans. from French, 2nd ed. ( J. Round and N. Cliff, 1710). The Mercenary Lover: Or, The Unfortunate Heiresses (N. Dobb, 1726). The Merry Frolick: Or, The Comical Cheats of Swalpo (S. Bates, c. 1720). Modern Novels, 12 vols. (R. Bentley, 1692). [Montalbán, Juan Pérez de]. The Diverting Works of the Famous Miguel de Cervantes ( J. Round and others, 1709). Montesquieu, Charles, baron de. Persian Letters, trans. John Ozell, 2 vols. ( J. Tonson, T. Combes, and J. Lacy, 1722). The Most Delectable History of Reynard the Fox (T. James for E. Brewster, 1694). The Most Excellent and Famous History of the Most Renowned Knight, Amadis of Greece ( J. Deacon and J. Blare, 1693). The Most Famous History of the Learned Fryer Bacon (T. Norris, c. 1700). The Most Pleasant History of Reynard the Fox ( J. Conyers, c. 1700). Mountfort, William. The Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, Made into a Farce (E. Whitlock, 1697). A Narrative of all the Robberies, Escapes, &c. of John Sheppard ( J. Applebee, 1724). Neve, Richard. The Merry Companion: Or, Delights for the Ingenious (E. Tracey, 1716). The New Atalantis, for the Year 1713 (E. Curll, 1714). A New Ballad of Bold Robin Hood (W. Onley, c. 1695). A New Tale of a Tub (Witwould Wiseacre, c. 1710). A New Voyage Round the World, By a Course Never Sailed Before (A. Bettesworth and W. Mears, 1725). A New Voyage to the Island of Fools ( J. Morphew, 1713). The Noble Birth and Gallant Atchievements of That Remarkable Outlaw Robin Hood ( J. M. and J. Deacon, c. 1690). The Northern Atalantis: Or, York Spy (A. Baldwin, 1713). Bibliography · 305

Nunnery Tales (no publisher, 1727). P., H. The History of the Five Wise Philosophers (E. Tracy, 1711). The Pagan Prince: Or, A Comical History of the Heroick Achievements of the Palantine of Eboracum (“Amsterdam”: no publisher, 1690). The Palace Royal: Or, the Amours of the French King and Madam Lavalier, trans. T. B. (R. Bentley, 1696). The Perfidious Brethren, Or, The Religious Triumvirate: Display’d in Three Ecclesiastical Novels (T. Bickerton and others, 1720). The Perfidious P——Being Letters from a Nobleman to Two Ladies (no publisher, 1702). The Perplex’d Dutchess: Or, Treachery Rewarded ( J. Roberts, 1728). The Perquisite-Monger: Or The Rise and Fall of Ingratitude (no publisher, 1712). The Persian Cromwell (W. Mears and J. Roberts, 1724). The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to That which is to Come: The Third Part, 2nd ed. (W. O. for J. Back and J. Blare, 1695). Pinkethman’s Jests, 2nd ed. (T. Warner, 1721). Pix, Mary. The Inhumane Cardinal, Or, Innocence Betray’d ( J. Harding and R. Wilkin, 1696). The Player’s Tragedy, Or, Fatal Love (R. Taylor, 1693). The Pleasant History of Cawwood the Rook (W. O., c. 1700). The Pleasant History of Tom Ladle ( J. Blare, c. 1690). The Pleasaunt Historie of Lazarillo de Tormes a Spaniarde, trans. David Rouland (Abell Jeffes, 1586). Political Fables, with Proper Reflections ( J. Peele, 1721). Polly Peachum’s Jests ( J. Roberts, 1728). [Préchac, Jean de]. The Disguis’d Prince, trans. Eliza Haywood, 2nd ed. (T. Corbett and J. Roberts, 1728). The Prentice’s Tragedy: Or, The History of George Barnwell (W. O., c. 1700). The Present State of Fairy-Land (T. Warner, 1713). Preston, Richard Graham, Viscount. The Moral State of England (R. Bentley and D. Brown, 1694). The Progress of the Christian Pilgrim, 2nd ed. (no publisher, 1702). Quevedo Villegas, Francisco de. Fortune in Her Wits, Or, The Hour of All Men, trans. John Stevens (R. Sare, F. Saunders, and T. Bennet, 1697). ———. The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo Villegas, trans. Roger L’Estrange, 8th ed. (R. Sare and E. Hindmarsh, 1696). Quintana, Francisco de. The Most Entertaining History of Hippolyto and Aminta (A. Bettesworth, J. Batley, and W. Boreham, 1718). Rabelais, Francis. The Works of the Famous Mr. Francis Rabelais, trans. Thomas Urchard (R. B. for J. Starkey, 1664; rep. R. Baldwin, 1694). [Ramsay, Andrew]. The Life of François de Salignac de la Motte Fénelon (P. Vaillant and J. Woodman, 1723). ———. The Travels of Cyrus, 2 vols. (T. Woodward and J. Peele, 1727). A Record of Ancient Histories, Entituled in Latin, Gesta Romanorum (T. Basset and others, 1698). 306 · Bibliography

Reflections on the Various Effects of Love (N. Dobb, 1726). The Reviv’d Fugitive (R. Bentley, 1690). The Rival Mother (R. Baldwin, 1692). [Rowe, Elizabeth]. Friendship in Death, In Twenty Letters from the Dead to the Living (T. Worrall, 1728). Rowland, Samuel. The Famous History of Guy of Warwick (G. Conyers, c. 1700). Russen, David. Iter Lunare: Or, A Voyage to the Moon ( J. Nutt, 1703). S., J. The Famous History of the Valiant London-Prentice ( J. Back, 1693). Saint-Évremond, Charles de. The Works of Mr. de St. Evremont, 2 vols. (A. and J. Churchill, 1700). Scarron, Paul. Scarron’s Novels, trans. John Davies (T. Dring, 1665; R. Everingham for R. Bentley and others, 1694). ———. The Whole Comical Works of Monsr. Scarron (S. and J. Sprint and others, 1700). Scarron Incens’d: Or, His Appearing to Madam de Maintenon, His Late Wife (R. Taylor, 1694). Scarron’s City Romance (T. N. for H. Herringman, 1671). The Scotch Rogue: Or, The Life and Actions of Donald Macdonald, 2 vols. (R. Gifford, 1706). Scudéry, Madeleine de. Artamenes; Or, The Grand Cyrus, 10 vols. ( J. Darby and others, 1691). A Second Tale of a Tub ( J. Roberts, 1715). The Secret History of Burgundy ( J. Walthoe, T. Woodward, and T. Warner, 1723). The Secret History of Pythagoras ( J. Brotherton and others, 1721). The Secret History of Queen Zarah, and the Zarazians (“Albigion” [i.e., London]: no publisher, 1705). The Secret History of the Duke of Alançon and Q. Elizabeth (Will with the Wisp [i.e., R. Bentley], 1691). The Secret History of the Dutchess of Portsmouth (R. Baldwin, 1690). The Secret History of the Most Renowned Q. Elizabeth and the E. of Essex (Will with the Wisp [i.e., R. Bentley], 1695). The Secret History of the October Club (no publisher, 1711). The Secret History of the Prince of the Nazarenes and Two Turks ( J. Moore, 1719). The Secret History of the Reigns of K. Charles II and K. James II (no publisher, 1690). Segrais, Jean Regnauld de. Five Novels (D. Browne, 1725). A Select Collection of Novels, 4 vols. and 6 vols. ( J. Watts, 1720–22). Seven Portuguese Letters (H. Brome, 1681). Shurly, John. The Renowned History (Or the Life and Death) of Guy Earl of Warwick (A. M. for P. Brooksby, 1695). Sidney, Philip. The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia (The New Arcadia), ed. Victor Skretkowicz (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987). ———. The Works of the Honourable Sr. Philip Sidney, Kt., 14th ed., 3 vols. (E. Taylor and others, 1725). The Siege of Mentz; Or, The German Heroin (S. Briscoe, 1692). Bibliography · 307

Smith, Alexander. The History of the Lives of the Most Noted Highway-men, Foot-pads, House-breakers, Shop-lifts, and Cheats ( J. Morphew and A. Dodd, 1714). Smithson, Samuel. The Famous History of Guy Earl of Warwick (F. Coles and others, c. 1600). [Smollett, Tobias]. The Adventures of Roderick Random, 2 vols. ( J. Osborn, 1748). Solórzano, Alonso de Castillo. The Spanish Pole-Cat: Or, The Adventures of Seniora Rufina, trans. L’Estrange and Ozell (E. Curll and W. Taylor, 1717). The Spanish Decameron, trans. R. L. (S. Neale, 1687). The Spanish Libertines, trans. John Stevens ( J. How, 1707). The Spanish Rogues: Being the History of Donna Rosina, trans. Edward Walron, 13th ed. (Dublin: T. M’Donnel, 1793). The Surprize; or Constancy Rewarded ( J. Roberts, 1724). [Swift, Jonathan]. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jonathan Swift, ed. Claude Rawson and others, 6 vols. so far (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2008–present). ———. A Tale of a Tub ( J. Nutt, 1704). ———. Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, 2 vols. (B. Motte, 1726). Symmons, Mr. The Whimsical Lovers: Or, Cupid in Disguise ( J. Crokatt, 1725). Syr Beuys of Hampton (W. Coplande, c. 1560). Syr Bevis of Hampton (T. East, c. 1585). The Tale of a Tub, Revers’d (A. Baldwin, 1705). [Terrasson, Jean]. The Life of Sethos, trans. Lediad, 2 vols. ( J. Walthoe, 1732). The Testimonies of Several Citizens of Fickleborough, In the Kingdom of Fairy-Land ( J. Morphew, 1713). Theobald, Lewis. The History of the Loves of Antiochus and Stratonice ( J. Browne, 1717). The Thousand and One Days: Persian Tales, trans. Ambrose Philips, 3 vols. ( J. Tonson, 1714–15). Tom Tram of the West (W. T. for J. Gilbertson, c. 1689). The Treacherous Confident: Or, Fortune’s Change, A Novel (Dublin: S. Powell for S. Pepyat and T. Benson, 1728). A True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal (B. Bragg, 1706). The True Secret History of the Lives and Reigns of all the Kings and Queens of England (no publisher, 1702). The Tryal of Tho. Pilkington, Esq. . . . Ford Lord Grey of Werk (T. Dring, 1683). [Tyssot de Patot, Simon]. The Travels and Adventures of James Massey, trans. Stephen Whatley ( J. Watts, 1733). The Unhappy Lovers: Or, The Timorous Fair One (R. Bentley, 1694). Valentine and Orson, The Two Sons of the Emperor of Greece ( J. W. for E. Tracy, 1694). Vaughan, Walter. The Adventures of Five Englishmen from Pulo Condoro (C. Bates and A. Bettesworth, 1714). Vertue Rewarded; or, The Irish Princess (R. Bentley, 1693). [Vignacourt, Adrien de la Vieuville comte de]. The Adventures of Prince Jakaya, 2 vols. (A. Bettesworth and others, 1733). Villedieu, Marie-Catherine de. The Exiles of the Court of Augustus Caesar (D. Browne and S. Chapman, 1726). 308 · Bibliography

The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Robert Boyle ( J. Watts, 1726). The Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mandevile, Knight (Richard Chiswell and others, 1696). The Voyages, Dangerous Adventures, and Imminent Escapes of Captain Richard Falconer (W. Chetwood and others, 1720). Ward, Edward. The Life and Notable Adventures of that Renown’d Knight, Don Quixote De la Mancha Merrily Translated into Hudibrastick Verse (T. Norris, A. Bettesworth, and J. Woodward, [1711]). The Whole Life and Death of Long Meg of Westminster (no publisher, c. 1720). Woman’s Malice, A Novel ( J. Wilde, 1699). The Young Man’s Guide to a Vertuous Life (G. Conyers and M. Conyers, 1698). Zingis, trans. J. M. (F. Saunders and R. Parker, 1692).

Secondary Anon. Books Printed for Richard Wellington, At the Dolphin and Crown without Temple-Bar (no publisher, no date). ESTC no. T208321. Anon. By the King a Proclamation inhibiting all persons after Bartholomew-tyde next, to use the Trade of a Pedler or Pettie-Chapman (B. Norton and J. Bill, 1618). Anon. The Chapmans and Travellers Almanack (T. James for the Company of Stationers, 1695). Anon. An Essay on the New Species of Writing founded by Mr. Fielding (W. Owen, 1751). Aercke, Kristiaan P. “Congreve’s Incognita: Romance, Novel, Drama?” ECF 2.4 (1990), 293–308. Alker, Sharon. “The Soldierly Imagination: Narrating Fear in Defoe’s Memoirs of a Cavalier,” ECF 19.1–2 (2006), 43–68. Allen, Walter. The English Novel: A Short Critical History (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1954). Arber, Edward, ed. The Term Catalogues, 1668–1709 A.D.; with a Number for Easter Term, 1711 A.D., 3 vols. (London: Privately Printed for Edward Arber, 1903–6). Ashton, John. Chap-Books of the Eighteenth Century (London: Chatto and Windus, 1882). Austin, Michael. “The Figural Logic of the Sequel and the Unity of The Pilgrim’s Progress,” SP 102.4 (2005), 484–509. Avery, Emmett L., Arthur H. Scouten, and William Van Lennep, eds. The London Stage, 1660–1800, 5 parts, 11 vols. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1960–68). Ayers, Robert W. “Robinson Crusoe: ‘Allusive Allegorick History,’ ” PMLA 82.5 (1967), 399–407. Backscheider, Paula R. “The Novel’s Gendered Space,” in Revising Women: EighteenthCentury ‘Women’s Fiction’ and Social Engagement, ed. Paula R. Backscheider (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2000), 1–30. Baepler, Paul. “The Barbary Captivity Narrative in American Culture,” Early American Literature 39.2 (2004), 217–46. Bibliography · 309

Baines, Paul, and Pat Rogers. Edmund Curll, Bookseller (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007). Baker, David Erskine. The Companion to the Play-House (Biographia Dramatica), 2 vols. (T. Becket and others, 1764). Baker, Ernest A. The History of the English Novel, vol. 3: The Later Romances and the Establishment of Realism (London: H. F. and G. Witherby, 1929). Ballaster, Ros. Fabulous Orients: Fictions of the East in England, 1662–1785 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005). ———. Seductive Forms: Women’s Amatory Fiction from 1684 to 1740 (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1992). Bannet, Eve Tavor. “‘Secret History’: Or, Talebearing Inside and Outside the Secretorie,” HLQ 68.1–2 (2005), 375–96. Barbour, Reid. Deciphering Elizabethan Fiction (Newark: U of Delaware P, 1993). Baron, Frank. Doctor Faustus: From History to Legend (München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1978). Bartolomeo, Joseph F. A New Species of Criticism: Eighteenth-Century Discourse on the Novel (Newark: U of Delaware P, 1994). Beasley, Jerry C. Novels of the 1740s (Athens: U of Georgia P, 1982). Beattie, Lester M. John Arbuthnot: Mathematician and Satirist (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1935). Bender, John. Imagining the Penitentiary: Fiction and the Architecture of Mind in Eighteenth-Century England (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1987). Bennett, Josephine Waters. The Rediscovery of Sir John Mandeville (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1954). Bennett, Stuart. Trade Bookbinding in the British Isles, 1660–1800 (Newcastle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2004). Bentley, G. E., Jr. “Copyright Documents in the George Robinson Archive: William Godwin and Others, 1713–1820,” SB 35 (1982), 67–110. Blagden, Cyprian. “Notes on the Ballad Market in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century,” SB 6 (1954), 161–80. Blake, N. F. “The Literary Development of the Reynard Story in England,” SELIM: Revista de la Sociedad Española de Lengua y Literatura Inglesa Medieval 8 (1998), 9–34. Bogel, Fredric V. The Difference Satire Makes: Rhetoric and Reading from Jonson to Byron (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 2001). Bonnell, Thomas F. “The Reprint Trade,” in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. 5: 1695–1830, ed. Michael F. Suarez, S.J., and Michael L. Turner (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009), 699–709. Bottigheimer, Ruth B. “Misperceived Perceptions: Perrault’s Fairy Tales and English Children’s Literature,” Children’s Literature 30 (2002), 1–18. Boulukos, George E. “Daniel Defoe’s Colonel Jack, Grateful Slaves, and Racial Difference,” ELH 68.3 (2001), 615–31. Bowyer, William. The Bowyer Ledgers, ed. Keith Maslen and John Lancaster (London: Bibliographical Society, 1991). Boyce, Benjamin. “News from Hell: Satiric Communications with the Nether World 310 · Bibliography

in English Writing of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” PMLA 58.2 (1943), 402–37. Brown, Diane Berrett. “Emile’s Missing Text: Les Aventures de Télémaque,” Symposium 63.1 (2009), 51–71. Buck, John Dawson Carl. “The Motives of Puffing: John Newbery’s Advertisements, 1742–1767,” SB 30 (1977), 196–210. Bullard, Rebecca. The Politics of Disclosure, 1674–1725: Secret History Narratives (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2009). Burns, William E. “Glanvill, Joseph (1636–1680), Church of England Clergyman,” ODNB. Bywaters, David. “Anticlericalism in Swift’s Tale of a Tub,” SEL 36.3 (1996), 579–602. Calkin, Siobhain Bly. “Defining Christian Knighthood in a Saracen World: Changing Depictions of the Protagonist in Sir Bevis of Hampton,” in Sir Bevis of Hampton in Literary Tradition, ed. Ivana Djordjević and Jennifer Fellows (Cambridge: Brewer, 2008), 127–44. Capp, Bernard. “Long Meg of Westminster: A Mystery Solved,” Notes and Queries 45.3 (1998), 302–4. Carnell, Rachel. A Political Biography of Delarivier Manley (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2008). Cervantes, Gabriel. “Convict Transportation and Penitence in Moll Flanders,” ELH 78.2 (2011), 315–36. ———. “Episodic or Novelistic? Law in the Atlantic and the Form of Daniel Defoe’s Colonel Jack,” ECF 24.2 (2011), 247–77. Chilton, Leslie A. “No Posthumous Hoax: Smollett’s Telemachus,” Notes and Queries 39.1 (1992), 64–66. Clair, Colin. A History of Printing in Britain (New York: Oxford UP, 1966). Coleman, D. C. The British Paper Industry, 1495–1860: A Study in Industrial Growth (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1958). Columbus, Robert R. “Conscious Artistry in Moll Flanders,” SEL 3.3 (1963), 415–32. Courteault, Paul. “Le voyage de Mme d’Aulnoy en Espagne,” Bulletin hispanique 38.3 (1936), 383–84. Damrosch, David. “Toward a History of World Literature,” New Literary History 39.3 (2008), 481–95. Davies, Michael. Graceful Reading: Theology and Narrative in the Works of John Bunyan (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002). Davis, Lennard J. Factual Fictions: The Origins of the English Novel (New York: Columbia UP, 1983). Day, Robert Adams. Told in Letters: Epistolary Fiction before Richardson (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1966). Deazley, Ronan. On the Origin of the Right to Copy: Charting the Movement of Copyright Law in Eighteenth Century Britain (1695–1775) (Oxford and Portland, OR: Hart Publishing, 2004). Devine, Paul. “Unity and Meaning in Thomas Deloney’s Thomas of Reading,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 87.4 (1986), 578–93. Bibliography · 311

Dickie, Simon. Cruelty and Laughter: Forgotten Comic Literature and the Unsentimental Eighteenth Century (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2011). Dobrée, Bonamy. The Oxford History of English Literature, vol. 7: English Literature in the Early Eighteenth Century, 1700–1740, ed. F. P. Wilson and Bonamy Dobrée (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1959). Doody, Margaret Anne. The True Story of the Novel (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1996). Dowdell, Coby. “The American Hermit and the British Castaway: Voluntary Retreat and Deliberative Democracy in Early American Culture,” Early American Literature 46.1 (2011), 121–56. Dunton, John. The Life and Errors of John Dunton (S. Malthus, 1705). Eagleton, Terry. The English Novel: An Introduction (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005). Edwards, Philip. The Story of the Voyage: Sea-Narratives in Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994). Ellis, Markman. “Coffee-House Libraries in Mid-Eighteenth-Century London,” Library, 7th ser., 10.1 (2009), 3–40. Esdaile, Arundell. A List of English Tales and Prose Romances Printed before 1740 (London: Bibliographical Society, 1912). Feather, John. “John Nourse and His Authors,” SB 34 (1981), 205–26. ———. The Provincial Book Trade in Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1985, rep. 2008). ———. “The Publication of James Harrington’s The Commonwealth of Oceana,” Library 32 (1977), 262–68. ———. Publishing, Piracy, and Politics: An Historical Study of Copyright in Britain (London: Mansell Publishing, 1994). Ferdinand, C. Y. “Local Distribution Networks in 18th-Century England,” in Spreading the Word: The Distribution Networks of Print 1550–1850, ed. Robin Myers and Michael Harris (Winchester: St Paul’s Bibliographies, 1990), 131–49. Firth, C. H. “Defoe’s True Relation of the Apparition of Mrs. Veal,” RES 7.25 (1931), 1–6. Fleck, Andrew. “Here, There, and in Between: Representing Difference in the Travels of Sir John Mandeville,” SP 97.4 (2000), 379–400. Foot, Mirjam. “Some Bookbinders’ Price Lists of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” in Economics of the British Booktrade, 1605–1939, ed. Robin Myers and Michael Harris (Cambridge: Chadwick-Healey, 1985), 124–75. Foxon, David. Pope and the Early Eighteenth-Century Book Trade, revised by James McLaverty (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1991). Frontón, Miguel Ángel. “La difusión del Oliveros de Castilla: Apuntes para la historia editorial de una historia caballeresca,” Dicenda: Cuadernos de Filología Hispánica 8 (1989), 37–51. Furbank, P. N., and W. R. Owens. The Canonisation of Daniel Defoe (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1988). ———. A Critical Bibliography of Daniel Defoe (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1998). 312 · Bibliography

———. Defoe De-Attributions: A Critique of J. R. Moore’s “Checklist” (London: Hambledon Press, 1994). ———. “Defoe’s ‘South-Sea’ and ‘North-Sea’ Schemes: A Footnote to A New Voyage Round the World,” ECF 13.4 (2001), 501–8. Furdell, Elizabeth Lane. “Boorde, Andrew (c. 1490–1549),” ODNB. Gael, Patricia. “The Origins of the Book Review in England, 1663–1749,” Library, 7th ser., 13.1 (2012), 63–89. Ganz, Melissa J. “Moll Flanders and English Marriage Law,” ECF 17.2 (2005), 157–82. Gaskell, Roger. “Printing House and Engraving Shop: A Mysterious Collaboration,” Book Collector 53.2 (2004), 213–51. Gollapudi, Aparna. “Virtuous Voyages in Penelope Aubin’s Fiction,” SEL 45.3 (2005), 669–90. Greaves, Richard L. “Grey, Ford, earl of Tankerville (bap. 1655, d. 1701),” ODNB. Green, Richard Firth, “Violence in the Early Robin Hood Poems,” in “A Great Effusion of Blood”? Interpreting Medieval Violence, ed. Mark D. Meyerson, Daniel Thiery, and Oren Falk (Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2004), 268–86. Greene, Jody. “Captain Singleton: An Epic of Mitsein?” Eighteenth Century 52.3–4 (2011), 403–21. Gregg, Stephen H. Defoe’s Writings and Manliness: Contrary Men (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009). ———. “Male Friendship and Defoe’s Captain Singleton: ‘My Every Thing,’ ” British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 27.2 (2004), 203–18. Griffin, Dustin. Satire: A Critical Reintroduction (Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1994). Griffin, Robert J. “Anonymity and Authorship,” New Literary History 30.4 (1999), 877–95. ———. “The Text in Motion: Eighteenth- Century Roxanas,” ELH 72.2 (2005), 387–406. Guilleragues, Gabriel Joseph de Lavergne, vicomte de. Chansons et Bons Mots, Valentins, Lettres Portugaises, ed. Frédéric Deloffre and Jacques Rougeot (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1972). Hamlyn, Hilda M. “Eighteenth- Century Circulating Libraries in England,” Library, 5th ser. 1.3–4 (1947), 197–222. Hammond, Brean S. Professional Imaginative Writing in England, 1670–1740: “Hackney for Bread” (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997). Handover, P. M. Printing in London from 1476 to Modern Times (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1960). Harrison, Frank Mott. “Editions of The Pilgrim’s Progress,” Library, 4th ser. 22.1 (1941), 73–81. ———. “Nathaniel Ponder: The Publisher of The Pilgrim’s Progress,” Library, 4th ser. 15.3 (1934), 257–94. Harth, Phillip. Swift and Anglican Rationalism (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1961). Haskin, Dayton. “The Burden of Interpretation in The Pilgrim’s Progress,” SP 79.3 (1982), 256–78. Bibliography · 313

Hayden, Judy A. “Harlequin, the Whigs, and William Mountfort’s Doctor Faustus,” SEL 49.3 (2009), 573–93. Hayes, Julie Candler. “Tobias Smollett and the Translators of the Quixote” [reviewessay], HLQ 67.4 (2004), 651–68. Healey, Christina L. “‘A perfect Retreat indeed’: Speculation, Surveillance, and Space in Defoe’s Roxana,” ECF 21.4 (2009), 493–512. Herman, Ruth. The Business of a Woman: The Political Writings of Delarivier Manley (Newark: U of Delaware P, 2003). Hilliard, Stephen S. The Singularity of Thomas Nashe (Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1986). Hopkins, David, and Pat Rogers. “The Translator’s Trade,” in The Oxford History of Literary Translation in English, vol. 3: 1660–1790, ed. Stuart Gillespie and David Hopkins (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005), 81–95. Hoppit, Julian. A Land of Liberty? England 1689–1727, part of The New Oxford History of England, ed. J. M. Roberts (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000). Houston, R. A. Literacy in Early Modern Europe: Culture and Education, 1500–1800 (London: Longman, 1988). Howe, Ellic. A List of London Bookbinders, 1648–1815 (London: Bibliographical Society, 1950). Hume, Robert D. “The Conclusion of Defoe’s Roxana: Fiasco or Tour de Force?” Eighteenth-Century Studies 3.4 (1970), 475–90. ———. “The Date of Mountfort’s The Life and Death of Doctor Faustus,” Archiv für das Studium der neuren Sprachen und Literaturen 213 (1976), 109–11. ———. “The Economics of Culture in London, 1660–1740,” HLQ 69.4 (2006), 487–533. Hunter, J. Paul. Before Novels: The Cultural Contexts of Eighteenth-Century English Fiction (New York: Norton, 1990). ———. The Reluctant Pilgrim: Defoe’s Emblematic Method and Quest for Form in Robinson Crusoe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1966). Jack, Jane H. “A New Voyage round the World: Defoe’s Roman à Thèse,” HLQ 24.4 (1961), 323–36. Johnson, Samuel. A Dictionary of the English Language, 2 vols. (W. Strahan for J. and P. Knapton, and others, 1755). Karl, Frederick R. A Reader’s Guide to The Eighteenth Century Novel, rep. of The Adversary Literature (New York: Noonday Press, 1974). Kaufmann, U. Milo. The Pilgrim’s Progress and Traditions in Puritan Meditation (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1966). Kay, Donald. Short Fiction in “The Spectator” (University: U of Alabama P, 1975). Keener, Frederick M. English Dialogues of the Dead: A Critical History, an Anthology, and a Check List (New York: Columbia UP, 1973). King, Gregory. “A Scheme of the Income and Expence of the several Families of England, Calculated for the Year, 1688,” in An Essay upon the Probable Methods of Making a People Gainers in the Ballance of Trade ( J. Knapton, 1699), unnumbered page inserted before p. 23. 314 · Bibliography

King, Kathryn R. Jane Barker, Exile: A Literary Career 1675–1725 (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000). Knapp, Lewis M. “Smollett’s Translation of Fénelon’s Télémaque,” PQ 44.3 (1965), 405–7. Knight, Charles A. The Literature of Satire (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004). Knight, Stephen. “‘Meere English flocks’: Ben Jonson’s The Sad Shepherd and the Robin Hood Tradition,” in Robin Hood: Medieval and Post-Medieval, ed. Helen Phillips (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005), 129–44. Koonce, Howard L. “Moll’s Muddle: Defoe’s Use of Irony in Moll Flanders,” ELH 30.4 (1963), 377–94. Lautel, Alain. “The 1776 Télémaque in English: Smollett’s Posthumous Hoax?” Notes and Queries, new ser. 37.3 (1990), 312–14. Lawlis, Merritt E. Apology for the Middle Class: The Dramatic Novels of Thomas Deloney (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1960). ———, ed. Elizabethan Prose Fiction (New York: Odyssey Press, 1967). Leigh, David J. “Narrative, Ritual, and Irony in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress,” Journal of Narrative Theory 39.1 (2009), 1–28. Lewis, Jayne Elizabeth. The English Fable: Aesop and Literary Culture, 1651–1740 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996). Lindert, Peter H., and Jeffrey G. Williamson. “Revising England’s Social Tables 1688–1815,” Explorations in Economic History 19.4 (1983), 385–408. Lockwood, Thomas. “Subscription-Hunters and Their Prey,” Studies in the Literary Imagination 34.1 (2001), 121–35. Loewenstein, Joseph. The Author’s Due: Printing and the Prehistory of Copyright (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2002). Love, Harold. Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). Loveman, Kate. Reading Fictions, 1660–1740: Deception in English Literary and Political Culture (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008). Loveridge, Mark. A History of Augustan Fable (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998). Lynch, Beth. “Darby, John (d. 1704),” ODNB. ———. “Ponder, Nathaniel (1640–1699),” ODNB. Lynch, Kathleen M. Jacob Tonson, Kit-Cat Publisher (Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1971). Mandelbrote, Giles. “Richard Bentley’s Copies: The Ownership of Copyrights in the Late 17th Century,” in The Book Trade and Its Customers, 1450–1900: Historical Essays for Robin Myers, ed. Arnold Hunt, Giles Mandelbrote, and Alison Shell (Winchester: St Paul’s Bibliographies; New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 1997), 55–94. Manlove, C. N. “The Image of the Journey in Pilgrim’s Progress: Narrative versus Allegory,” Journal of Narrative Technique 10.1 (1980), 16–38. Markley, Robert. The Far East and the English Imagination, 1600–1730 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006). ———. “‘So Inexhaustible a Treasure of Gold’: Defoe, Capitalism, and the Romance of the South Seas,” Eighteenth Century Life 18.3 (1994), 148–67. Bibliography · 315

Marschalk, Lacy, Mallory Anne Porch, and Paula R. Backscheider. “The Empty Decade? English Fiction in the 1730s,” ECF 26.3 (2014), 375–426. Marshall, Ashley. “Beyond Furbank and Owens: A New Consideration of the Evidence for the ‘Defoe’ Canon,” SB 59 (2015), 131–90. ———. “Gulliver, Gulliveriana, and the Problem of Swiftian Satire,” PQ 84.2 (2005), 211–39. Maslen, R. W. “The Afterlife of Andrew Borde,” SP 100.4 (2003), 463–92. ———. Elizabethan Fictions: Espionage, Counter-Espionage, and the Duplicity of Fiction in Early Elizabethan Prose Narratives (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997). Mayer, Robert. “The Reception of A Journal of the Plague Year and the Nexus of Fiction and History in the Novel,” ELH 57.3 (1990), 529–55. Mayo, Robert D. The English Novel in the Magazines, 1740–1815, with a Catalogue of 1375 Magazine Novels and Novelettes (Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 1962). McBurney, William Harlin. A Check List of English Prose Fiction, 1700–1739 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1960). McKenzie, D. F. The Cambridge University Press, 1696–1712: A Bibliographical Study, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1966). McKeon, Michael. The Origins of the English Novel, 1600–1740 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1987). McKillop, Alan Dugald. The Early Masters of English Fiction (Lawrence: U of Kansas P, 1956). ———. “English Circulating Libraries, 1725–1750,” Library, 4th ser. 14.4 (1934), 477–85. McMurran, Mary Helen. The Spread of Novels: Translation and Prose Fiction in the Eighteenth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2010). Mentz, Steve. Romance for Sale in Early Modern England: The Rise of Prose Fiction (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006). Milhous, Judith, and Robert D. Hume. “Playwrights’ Remuneration in EighteenthCentury London,” Harvard Library Bulletin 10.2–3 (1999), 3–90. Mish, Charles C. English Prose Fiction, 1600–1700: A Chronological Checklist (Charlottesville: Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, 1967). ———. “Reynard the Fox in the Seventeenth Century,” HLQ 17.4 (1954), 327–44. Molesworth, Jesse M. “‘A Dreadful Course of Calamities’: Roxana’s Ending Reconsidered,” ELH 74.2 (2007), 493–508. Moseley, C. W. R. D. “The Metamorphosis of Sir John Mandeville,” Yearbook of English Studies 4 (1974), 5–25. Mounsey, Chris. “‘. . . bring her naked from her Bed, that I may ravish her before the Dotard’s face, and then send his Soul to Hell’: Penelope Aubin, Impious Pietist, Humourist or Purveyor of Juvenile Fantasy?” British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 26.1 (2003), 55–75. Moussa-Mahmoud, Fatma. “English Travellers and the Arabian Nights,” in The Arabian Nights in English Literature, ed. Peter L. Caracciolo (London: Macmillan Press, 1988), 95–110. 316 · Bibliography

Mudge, Bradford K. The Whore’s Story: Women, Pornography, and the British Novel, 1684–1830 (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000). Mueller, Judith C. “Writing under Constraint: Swift’s ‘Apology’ for A Tale of a Tub,” ELH 60.1 (1993), 101–15. Mullan, John. Anonymity: A Secret History of English Literature (London: Faber and Faber, 2007). Murphy, G. Martin. “Stevens, John (c. 1662–1726),” ODNB. Newcomb, Lori Humphrey. Reading Popular Romance in Early Modern England (New York: Columbia UP, 2002). Newman, Ian. “Property, History, and Identity in Defoe’s Captain Singleton,” SEL 51.3 (2011), 565–83. Noel, Thomas. Theories of the Fable in the Eighteenth Century (New York: Columbia UP, 1975). Nokes, David. Raillery and Rage: A Study of Eighteenth Century Satire (Brighton: Harvester, 1987). North, Marcy L. The Anonymous Renaissance: Cultures of Discretion in Tudor-Stuart England (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2003). Okerlund, A. N. “The Intellectual Folly of Dr. Faustus,” SP 74.3 (1977), 258–78. Ormsby-Lennon, Hugh. Hey Presto! Swift and the Quacks (Newark: U of Delaware P, 2011). Orr, Leah. “Attribution Problems in the Fiction of Aphra Behn,” MLR 108.1 (2013), 30–51. ———. “The Basis for Attribution in the Canon of Eliza Haywood,” Library, 7th ser., 12.4 (2011), 335–75. ———. “The English Rogue: Afterlives and Imitations, 1665–1741,” Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 38.3 (2015), 361–76. ———. “Genre Labels on the Title Pages of English Fiction, 1660–1800,” PQ 90.1 (2011), 67–95. Palmer, Melvin D. “Madame d’Aulnoy in England,” Comparative Literature 27.3 (1975), 237–53. Palmeri, Frank. “The Metamorphoses of Satire in Eighteenth- Century Narrative,” Comparative Literature 48.3 (1996), 237–64. Patterson, Annabel. Fables of Power: Aesopian Writing and Political History (Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1991). Paulson, Ronald. The Fictions of Satire (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1967). ———. “Models and Paradigms: Joseph Andrews, Hogarth’s Good Samaritan, and Fénelon’s Télémaque,” Modern Language Notes 91.6 (1976), 1186–207. ———. Satire and the Novel in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1967). Pickwoad, Nicholas. Review of Trade Bookbinding, by Stuart Bennett, Library, 7th ser., 6.4 (2005), 464–65. Plomer, Henry Robert. A Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers Who Were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1668 to 1725 (Oxford: Bibliographical Society, Oxford UP, 1922). Bibliography · 317

Pocock, J. G. A. “James Harrington and the Good Old Cause: A Study of the Ideological Context of His Writings,” Journal of British Studies 10.1 (1970), 30–48. Pollard, A. J. Imagining Robin Hood: The Late-Medieval Stories in Historical Context (London: Routledge, 2004). Pollard, Graham. “Notes on the Size of the Sheet,” Library, 4th ser., 22.2–3 (1941), 105–37. Pollard, M. Dublin’s Trade in Books, 1550–1800 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). Pooley, Roger. English Prose Fiction of the Seventeenth Century, 1590–1700 (London: Longman, 1992). Potter, Esther. “The Changing Role of the Trade Bookbinder, 1800–1900,” in The Book Trade and Its Customers, 1450–1900: Historical Essays for Robin Myers, ed. Arnold Hunt, Giles Mandelbrote, and Alison Shell (Winchester, UK: St. Paul’s Bibliographies; New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 1997), 161–74. ———. “The London Bookbinding Trade: From Craft to Industry,” Library, 6th ser., 15.4 (1993), 259–80. Price, Leah. The Anthology and the Rise of the Novel from Richardson to George Eliot (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000). Proudfoot, Richard. “Johnson, Richard ( fl. 1592–1622),” ODNB. Rabb, Melinda Alliker. Satire and Secrecy in English Literature from 1650 to 1750 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). Randall, Dale B. J., and Jackson C. Boswell. Cervantes in Seventeenth-Century England: The Tapestry Turned (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009). Raven, James. “The Anonymous Novel in Britain and Ireland, 1750–1830,” in The Faces of Anonymity: Anonymous and Pseudonymous Publication from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century, ed. Robert J. Griffin (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 141–66. ———. British Fiction, 1750–1770: A Chronological Check-List of Prose Fiction Printed in Britain and Ireland (Newark: U of Delaware P, 1987). ———. The Business of Books: Booksellers and the English Book Trade, 1450–1850 (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2007). ———. “Historical Introduction: The Novel Comes of Age,” in The English Novel, 1770–1829: A Bibliographical Survey of Prose Fiction Published in the British Isles, ed. Peter Garside, James Raven, and Rainer Schöwerling, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000), 1.15–121. ———. “Libraries for Sociability: The Advance of the Subscription Library,” in The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland, vol. 2: 1640–1850, ed. Giles Mandelbrote and K. A. Manley (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006), 241–63. Rawson, Claude. Satire and Sentiment, 1660–1830 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994). Ray, William. Story and History: Narrative Authority and Social Identity in the Eighteenth-Century French and English Novel (Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1990). [Reeve, Clara]. The Progress of Romance, through Times, Countries, and Manners, 2 vols. (Colchester: W. Keymer and London: G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1785). 318 · Bibliography

Reuter, Ole. “Some Aspects of Thomas Deloney’s Prose Style,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 40.1 (1939), 23–72. Richetti, John J. Popular Fiction before Richardson: Narrative Patterns, 1700–1739 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969). Rose, Mark. Authors and Owners: The Invention of Copyright (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1993). Rouse, Robert Allen. “For King and Country? The Tension between National and Regional Identities in Sir Bevis of Hampton,” in Sir Bevis of Hampton in Literary Tradition, ed. Ivana Djordjević and Jennifer Fellows (Cambridge: Brewer, 2008), 114–26. Rummell, Kathryn. “Defoe and the Black Legend: The Spanish Stereotype in A New Voyage Round the World,” Rocky Mountain Review 52.2 (1998), 13–28. Salzman, Paul. English Prose Fiction, 1558–1700: A Critical History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985). Sands, Donald B. “Reynard the Fox as Pícaro and Reinaerts Historie as Picaresque Fiction,” Journal of Narrative Technique 1.3 (1971), 137–45. Sargent, Carole Fungaroli. “How a Pie Fight Satirizes Whig-Tory Conflict in Delarivier Manley’s The New Atalantis,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 44.4 (2011), 515–33. Scheuermann, Mona. Her Bread to Earn: Women, Money, and Society from Defoe to Austen (Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1993). Scouten, Arthur H. “An Early Printed Report on the Apparition of Mrs. Veal,” RES, n.s., 6.23 (1955), 259–63. Seager, Nicholas. “Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: Epistemology and Fiction in Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year,” MLR 103.3 (2008), 639–53. ———. “The Novel’s Afterlife in the Newspaper, 1712–1750,” in The Afterlives of Eighteenth-Century Fiction, ed. Daniel Cook and Nicholas Seager (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2015), 111–32. ———. “‘A Romance the likest to Truth that I ever read’: History, Fiction, and Politics in Defoe’s Memoirs of a Cavalier,” ECF 20.4 (2008), 479–505. ———. “The 1740 Roxana: Defoe, Haywood, Richardson, and Domestic Fiction,” PQ 88.1–2 (2009), 103–26. Sharp, Andrew. “The Manuscript Versions of Harrington’s Oceana,” Historical Journal 16.2 (1973), 227–39. Sharrock, Roger. “The Life and Death of Mr. Badman: Facts and Problems,” MLR 82.1 (1987), 15–29. Sher, Richard B. The Enlightenment and the Book: Scottish Authors and Their Publishers in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, and America (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2006). Sherbo, Arthur. “Swift and Travel Literature,” Modern Language Studies 9.3 (1979), 114–27. Sherburn, George. A Literary History of England, vol. 3: The Restoration and Eighteenth Century, ed. Albert C. Baugh (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1948). Siebert, Fredrick Seaton. Freedom of the Press in England, 1476–1776: The Rise and Decline of Government Controls (Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1952). Bibliography · 319

Smeed, J. W. Faust in Literature (New York: Oxford UP, 1975). Smith, Amy Elizabeth. “Travel Narratives and the Familiar Letter Form in the MidEighteenth Century,” SP 95.1 (1998), 77–96. Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Novel Beginnings: Experiments in Eighteenth-Century English Fiction (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2006). Spedding, Patrick. A Bibliography of Eliza Haywood (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2004). Spencer, Jane. Aphra Behn’s Afterlife (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000). ———. The Rise of the Woman Novelist from Aphra Behn to Jane Austen (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986). Spender, Dale. Mothers of the Novel: 100 Good Women Writers before Jane Austen (London: Pandora Press, 1986). Spielman, David Wallace. “The Value of Money in Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders, and Roxana,” MLR 107.1 (2012), 65–87. Spufford, Margaret. Small Books and Pleasant Histories: Popular Fiction and Its Readership in Seventeenth-Century England (Athens: U of Georgia P, 1981). Starr, G. A. Defoe and Casuistry (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1971). ———. Defoe and Spiritual Autobiography (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1965). ———. “Why Defoe Probably Did Not Write The Apparition of Mrs. Veal,” ECF 15.3–4 (2003), 421–50. St Clair, William. The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004). Stevenson, Lionel. The English Novel: A Panorama (Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1960). Suarez, Michael F., SJ. “Publishing Contemporary English Literature, 1695–1774,” in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. 5: 1695–1830, ed. Michael F. Suarez, SJ, and Michael L. Turner (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009), 649–66. ———. “Towards a Bibliometric Analysis of the Surviving Record, 1701–1800,” in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. 5: 1695–1830, ed. Michael F. Suarez, SJ, and Michael L. Turner (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009), 39–65. Sutherland, James. The Restoration Newspaper and Its Development (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986). Sutton, Anne F. “Whittington, Richard [Dick] (c. 1350–1423),” ODNB. Sutton, John L., Jr. “The Source of Mrs. Manley’s Preface to Queen Zarah,” MP 82.2 (1984), 167–72. Swaim, Kathleen M. Pilgrim’s Progress, Puritan Progress: Discourses and Contexts (Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1993). Swaminathan, Srividhya. “Defoe’s Alternative Conduct Manual: Survival Strategies and Female Networks in Moll Flanders,” ECF 15.2 (2003), 185–206. Temple, Kathryn. “Manley’s ‘Feigned Scene’: The Fictions of Law at Westminster Hall,” ECF 22.4 (2010), 573–98. Thompson, Roger. “Samuel Pepys’ ‘Penny Merriments’: A Checklist,” Library, 5th ser., 31.3 (1976), 223–34. ———. Samuel Pepys’ Penny Merriments (London: Constable, 1976). 320 · Bibliography

Tierney, James. “Advertisements for Books in London Newspapers, 1760–1785,” Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 30 (2001), 153–64. Todd, Janet. The Secret Life of Aphra Behn (London: André Deutsch, 1996). ———. The Sign of Angellica: Women, Writing and Fiction, 1660–1800 (New York: Columbia UP, 1989). Treadwell, Michael. “London Trade Publishers 1675–1750,” Library, 6th ser., 4.2 (1982), 99–134. Trent, W. P. “Defoe: The Newspaper and the Novel,” in The Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. 9: From Steele and Addison to Pope and Swift, ed. Adolphus William Ward and A. R. Waller (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907–21), 1–28. Troyer, Howard William. Ned Ward of Grubstreet: A Study of Sub-Literary London in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1946). Turley, Hans. “Piracy, Identity, and Desire in Captain Singleton,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 31.2 (1997), 199–214. ———. Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash: Piracy, Sexuality, and Masculine Identity (New York: New York UP, 1999). Turner, Cheryl. Living by the Pen: Women Writers in the Eighteenth Century (London: Routledge, 1992). Varty, Kenneth. Reynard, Renart, Reinaert, and Other Foxes in Medieval England: The Iconographic Evidence (Amsterdam: Amsterdam UP, 1999). Wallis, P. J. “Book Subscription Lists,” Library, 5th ser., 29 (1974), 255–86. Walmsley, Peter. “Whigs in Heaven: Elizabeth Rowe’s Friendship in Death,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 44.3 (2011), 315–30. Walton, James. “On the Attribution of Mrs. Veal,” Notes and Queries 54.1 (2007), 60–62. Warner, William B. Licensing Entertainment: The Elevation of Novel Reading in Britain, 1684–1750 (Berkeley: U of California P, 1998). Watson, George, ed. The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, vol. 2: 1660–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1971). Watt, Ian. The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding (Berkeley: California UP, 1957). Watt, Tessa. Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550–1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991). Whicher, George Frisbie. The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood (New York: Columbia UP, 1915). Williams, Ioan. The Idea of the Novel in Europe, 1600–1800 (New York: New York UP, 1979). Woodbridge, Linda. “Jest Books, the Literature of Roguery, and the Vagrant Poor in Renaissance England,” English Literary Renaissance 33.2 (2003), 201–10.

Bibliography · 321

Index

Note: Some titles have been abbreviated for ease of reference. The letter “t” following a page number denotes a table. abridgements, 71, 238. See also chapbooks: abridging longer stories account, 20, 22 Account of Some Remarkable Passages in the Life of a Private Gentleman, An, 22 Addison, Joseph, 40–41, 66–67, 213 Adventures of Covent-Garden, The, 79, 259 Adventures of the Helvetian Hero, The, 255 Adventures of John Le-Brun, The, 269 Adventures of the Prince of Clermont, The, 145 advertisements: cost of, 57; examples of, 30, 33, 57–59, 89; in fiction, 213–14; genre terms on, 25–26; strategies for, 47–49, 57–59, 97, 145, 278n32 Aercke, Kristiaan P., 21 Aesop, 70, 110 alcohol, 66, 237–38 Alemán, Matheo, The Rogue [Guzmán de Alfarache], 145, 155 allegory: definition of, 19–20, 194; examples of, 129–36, 202, 209–10, 223; to justify fiction, 23–24; as way of reading, 114 Amadis of Greece, 48 amorous, 93, 148–55, 158, 190, 222, 254–61

Amours of Philantus and Bellamond, The, 26, 265 Amours of Philario and Olinda, The, 266 Anne, Queen, 184, 189, 197, 198, 205, 265 anonymity, 8–9, 15, 75–80, 82–84, 87, 88, 98–99, 210, 267 anthologies, 88–91, 96–98 anti-Catholicism, 65, 135–36, 151, 153– 55, 203. See also religion, critique of Apparition of One Mrs. Veal, The, 8, 26, 187t, 212–14, 266 apprentice, as character, 128 Arber, Edward, 45 Arbuthnot, John, The History of John Bull, 45, 187t, 191, 195, 201–3, 206 Art of Cuckoldom, The, 256 Art of Pleasing in Conversation, The, 97–98 Arthur, King, 105–6, 112 Ashton, John, 61 attribution, 9, 15, 23, 75–77, 80, 98; as marketing tool, 84, 89 Aubin, Penelope, 87, 144–46, 184, 246, 260, 264, 269. Works: The Life of Charlotta du Pont, 188t; The Life of Madame de Beaumont, 187t; The Noble Slaves, 188t, 245–48, 261; The Strange Adventures of the Count de Vinevil, 248

323

Aulnoy, Marie-Catherine d’, 73, 92–93, 99, 153. Works: Diverting Works, 78, 92, 145, 163; Lady——’s Travels into Spain, 17, 78, 145, 152–53; Memoirs of the Court of France, 19, 25, 78, 99; Memoirs of the Court of Spain, 19, 144, 146; The Present Court of Spain, 78; Tales of the Fairies, 163–64, 168 Austin, Michael, 134 authors: biographies of, 82, 92–94, 99; fame of, 71, 75, 77–79, 83–84, 88–99; great man theory of, 6–7, 10, 12, 26; “minor,” 6, 8, 11, 12; payments to, 29, 85–88, 94–95; as persons of leisure, 81–82; portraits of, 132; “professional,” 75, 76, 85–88, 99; rights of, 71, 81, 84–85; status of, 80, 86; theory of, 81–82, 98–99; as translators, 144; women, 11, 12–13, 44 Ayres, Philip, The Revengeful Mistress, 23–24 Backscheider, Paula R., 34–35, 268 Baepler, Paul, 248 Baines, Paul, 51 Baker, David Erskine, 93 Baker, Ernest A., 6, 191, 195, 233 Baldwin, Richard, 45 Ballad Partners, 45, 48 ballads, 63, 66, 108, 109 Ballaster, Ros, 12–13, 165, 198 Bannet, Eve Tavor, 196 Banquet for Gentlemen and Ladies, A, 90t Barclay, John, Argenis, 126 Barker, Jane, 7, 45, 184. Works: Entertaining Novels, 37, 84, 90t, 94, 223; Exilius, 32, 43, 58, 84, 94, 223, 256; Lining of the Patch Work Screen, 222; Love Intrigues, 84, 94, 222–23, 284n47; Patch-Work Screen, 222–23 Bartolomeo, Joseph F., 16, 24 Bateman’s Tragedy, 63, 66 Bath-Intrigues, 17

Beasley, Jerry C., 269 Beckford, William, 8 Behn, Aphra: in literary history, 4, 6, 7, 13, 14, 26, 49, 98; marketing of, 94, 99 as professional, 85; as translator, 144. Works: Adventure of the Black Lady, 94; Histories and Novels, 90t, 93, 187t; Memoirs of the Court of the King of Bantam, 94; The Nun, 94; Oroonoko, 20–21, 93 Belle Assemblée, La, 145 Bender, John, 13 Bennett, Josephine Waters, 112 Bennett, Stuart, 32 Bentley, G. E., 85 Bentley, Richard, 43–45, 98, 266, 279n53 Beowulf, 115 Berkeley, Lady Henrietta, 138 Berwick, 56 Bettesworth, Arthur, 44t, 52 Bible, 29, 71, 215, 218. See also scripture bibliography, 4, 6, 8–9, 76, 105 binding, 32–33 Blagden, Cyprian, 48 Blake, N. F., 111 Blare, Josiah, 44t, 44 Blind Beggar of Bednal-Green, The, 64, 126 Boccaccio, Giovanni, A Hundred Ingenious Novels, 145 Boddington, Nathaniel, 77 Bogel, Fredric V., 191–92, 194 book as physical object, 30, 33, 35, 58, 59, 71, 248 booksellers: definition of, 42; influence of, 5; outside London, 33; specializing in fiction, 43–50, 266, 269; types of, 43 Boorde, Andrew: Madmen of Gotham, 62, 126; Scogin’s Jests, 68–69, 117, 126, 281n128 Boswell, Jackson C., 89 Bottigheimer, Ruth B., 163

324 · Index

Boulainvilliers, Henri, Life of Mahomet, 268 Boulukos, George E., 233 Boursault, Edmé, Letters from a Lady of Quality, 38 Bower, Alan W., 202 Boyle, Robert, Parthenissa, 126 Brémond, Gabriel de, 97; Double Cuckold, 97–98; Happy Slave, 97, 177; Viceroy of Catalonia, 158 Brief and Merry History of Great Britain, A, 265 Bristol, 56 Brothers, The, 266 Brown, Charles, 44t, 44 Brown, Daniel, 44t, 45, 48–50, 52 Brown, Thomas, 87, 144, 146, 157; Letters from the Dead to the Living, 17, 40, 146, 177, 205–6, 212 Bullard, Rebecca, 18, 74, 198, 199 Bunchley, Samuel, 46 Bunyan, John: fame of, 84; fantasy of, 131; and Keach, 88, 117; in literary history, 4, 7, 8; reading, 106; realism of, 130–32. Works: Holy War, 20, 46, 133, 135, 141; Life and Death of Mr. Badman, 46, 133–35, 142; Pilgrim’s Progress, 19, 26, 46, 71, 105, 124, 129–32, 140, 141, 177, 212, 225; Pilgrim’s Progress, Second Part, 135, 283n17; Works, 38, 95–96 Burney, Frances, 8, 85 Burney Papers, 4 Butler, Sarah, 77 Cabinet Open’d, The, 18, 22, 74 Calkin, Siobhain Bly, 113 Cambridge History of English Literature, The, 6 canonization, 11, 88, 98, 103, 105, 140–42 Captain Singleton, 187t, 228–31 Cardinal Portocarrero, 151 Carnell, Rachel, 198–99

Catherine, Queen, 121 Catholicism, 148–54, 174–75, 216, 222 Cavendish, Margaret, 7; Blazing World, 126, 141 Caxton, William, 106, 111 censorship, 65, 73–74, 210 Cervantes, Gabriel, 233 Cervantes, Miguel de, 7, 73, 84, 97, 98. Works: Don Quixote, 147, 148, 168–74, 181; Don Quixote abridgments, 62, 170, 172–73; Don Quixote imitation, 173; Don Quixote sequels, 169, 173–74; Novelas Exemplares, 89, 146, 174–75; Salamanca Doctor, 169 chapbooks, 28–31, 35, 57, 59–68, 265; abridging longer stories, 48, 63, 107–8, 110–12, 116–17, 122, 170, 172–73, 218; market for, 44–45, 48, 122; publishers of, 44–45, 48 Chapman, Samuel, 43–45, 52, 266 chapmen, 48, 57, 60 Character of Love, The, 158 Charles I, King, 204 Charles II, King, 202, 219 chastity, 149, 200 Chaucer, Geoffrey, Canterbury Tales, 103, 111, 115, 141 Chetwood, William, 43–44, 52, 266 Chevy-Chase, 66–67 China, 250 chivalry, 64, 112–13, 118–19, 148–49 Churchill, Sarah, 197, 198 City Jilt, The, 188t, 259 claims to truth, 20–24, 78, 83, 164–65, 213 Clair, Colin, 56 class, of heroes, 41, 108, 109, 121. See also readers: class of Coffee-House Jests, 68 coffeehouses, 41, 68 coincidence, 128, 174, 247 Coleman, D. C., 29 collaboration between rival publishers, 55

Index · 325

collected works editions, 82, 88–99 Collection of Novels, A, 39, 90t, 97 Colonel Jacque, 23, 37, 41, 188t, 226, 228, 231–33 comedy, 155–62, 172–73 Comical and Tragical History of Fortunatus, The, 62 Comical History of Estevanille Gonzalez, The, 268 Compleat Mendicant, The, 224 Conduct of Christians, The, 224 Congreve, William, 84; Incognita, 21, 24, 99, 246, 255, 283n17 contextualization, historical, 15 conversion, Christian, 129, 136, 214–16, 219, 233 Conyers, George, 44 Coplande, William, 107 copyright: outside England, 53–55; law, 70–74, 81, 84–85; as part of production cost, 29, 87; of translations, 49; prices paid for, 71, 86–87; value of, 103–5. See also Statute of Anne corruption: of power, 200, 201, 233; of the Church, 151, 153 Courteault, Paul, 152 Court of Atalantis, The, 44 courtship, 222, 254–57, 261 Court Tales, 18 crime, 127–28, 134, 189, 201, 227–45 Crouch, Nathaniel, 131, 136–37 Crouch, Samuel, 145 Croxall, Samuel, 97 cruelty, 66, 68, 238 cuckold, 66, 67, 256 Curll, Edmund, 44t, 45, 51, 86, 223 Damrosch, David, 11 Darby, John, 95 databases, 6, 11 dates: of this study, 4, 125; uncertain, 9, 35, 104–6, 108, 115, 126, 150 Davies, John, 157–58 Davies, Michael, 130

Davis, Lennard J., 9, 10, 13, 169, 195 Davis, William, 25 Davys, Mary, 95. Works: Lady’s Tale, 94; Northern Heiress, 94; Reform’d Coquet, 38, 94, 188t; Works, 38, 91t, 94 Day, Robert Adams, 8, 33, 40–41, 86, 151 Deacon, Jonah, 44t, 44, 48 Deazley, Ronan, 71, 73, 81, 84 Defoe, Daniel: in literary history, 3–4, 6–8, 10–14, 98, 274n11; reprinting of works by, 84, 104, 184; reputation of, 23, 84; style of, 227. Works: Consolidator, 78, 206, 212; Farther Adventures, 24, 39, 186, 187t, 216, 245, 249–50; A Journal of the Plague Year, 79, 212, 217–18, 269; Serious Reflections, 24, 216; The True-Born Englishman, 79; Works, 95. See also Apparition of One Mrs. Veal, The; Captain Singleton; Colonel Jacque; Fortunate Mistress, The [Roxana]; Moll Flanders —, Robinson Crusoe: advertisement for, 58; compared to other works, 230, 231, 233; ending of, 39; in literary history, 4, 23, 26, 105, 263; popularity of, 40, 42, 71, 186–87, 277n9;as pseudo-factual, 20, 78; as religious fiction, 183, 190, 212, 214–16 De Gomez, Madeleine-Angélique, Persian Anecdotes, 266 Deloney, Thomas, 5, 7, 28, 115. Works: History of the Gentle Craft, 61–62, 77, 120; John Winchcomb [ Jack of Newbery], 77, 120–21, 140, 265, 267; Thomas of Reading, 48, 66, 116, 120, 142, 265 Dennisson, Charles, 44 development, character, 69, 128, 162, 228, 235 Devil, the, 117, 135, 136, 160–61, 223 Devil of a Whigg, The, 197

326 · Index

Devine, Paul, 121 dialogue, 39, 63, 64, 134, 204 Dickie, Simon, 67–68 didacticism, 13, 23, 136, 177, 193 Diderot, Denis, 7 Distress’d Orphan, The, 188t, 256 distribution: and access, 29; of chapbooks, 59–60; cost of, 33; outside London, 33, 56; of newspapers, 57 Dobrée, Bonamy, 6, 191, 216, 276n60 Dodd, Anne, 50, 52 Donaldson v. Becket, 81 Doody, Margaret Anne, 14 Dorastus and Fawnia. See Greene, Robert: Pandosto Double Marriage, The, 43, 257–58 Dowdell, Coby, 218 dream, 131–32, 220 Drelincourt, Charles, Christian’s Defence, 213–14 Dryden, John, 49, 70, 71, 96 Dublin, 53–55 Dumb Philosopher, The, 21, 224 Dumb Projector, The, 37 Duncan Campbell, 32, 37 Dunton, John, 7, 13, 43 D’Urfey, Thomas, 170 Dutch Whore, The, 265 Eagleton, Terry, 10, 169 earthquake, 214–15 ECCO, 4, 9 Edinburgh, 53, 55–56 EEBO, 4, 9 Elizabethan fiction, 5, 13, 28, 48, 115–24, 265 Ellis, Markman, 41 Elysium, 223–24 engraving, 32 Entertainments of Gallantry, 260 epistles. See letters Erickson, Robert A., 202 Esdaile, Arundell, 6, 8 Essex Champion, The, 265

ESTC, 4, 9, 35, 43, 46, 53, 104, 142, 163, 265 evangelism, 150, 215, 233 Evans, Ambrose, James Dubourdieu, 78, 190, 253 Exeter, 56 exoticism, 18, 93, 163–68, 177, 266, 268 fables, 59–60, 69–70, 110; length of, 70; political, 70, 202 fact. See fiction: versus fact Faerie Queene, The, 141 Fairy Feast, The, 206 Famous and Delightful History of the Golden Eagle, The, 62–63 Famous History of the Valiant LondonPrentice, The, 64 Faustus, 106, 117–18, 141, 264, 265 Feather, John, 33, 54, 81, 84, 85 Female Politician, The, 268 Fénelon, François de, 70. Works: Maxims of the Saints, 178–79; Telemachus, 5, 56, 71, 81, 143, 168, 175–81, 225, 269; Telemachus imitation, 180 Ferdinand, C. Y., 33 fiction: attitudes toward, 20, 24, 114; definition of, 8, 9, 12, 24, 35, 191; versus fact, 9–10, 17–27, 39, 59, 69, 83, 195; historical, 20, 22, 137–38, 149–50, 182; length of (see novel: length of ); as literary, 80, 266; versus novel, 5; political, 126–27, 138–39, 176–80, 189, 194–206, 208, 265–66; versus reality, 129, 169; religious, 189, 212–25; as share of print market, 34– 35, 43, 46, 56, 184–85, 190, 266–67; terms, 16–27, 83; travel, 190, 210–11, 245–53; types of, 186, 189–90, 261; utopian, 126–27, 176, 211 Fielding, Henry, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 144, 180; Joseph Andrews, 159, 169; Tom Jones, 10 Fish, Stanley, 130

Index · 327

Five Love-Letters Written by a Cavalier, 152 Five Wise Philosophers, The, 127–29, 140 folklore, English, 113, 115, 140 Foot, Mirjam, 33 Foote, Samuel, 160 Forced Virgin, The, 266 Ford, Emanuel: Montelion, 118–19, 124, 141, 265; Parismus, 118, 124, 191 Forde, Lord Grey, 138 form, narrative, 17–20, 25, 61–64, 67, 139. See also frame, narrative Fortunate Mistress, The [Roxana], 188t, 243–45 Foucault, Michel, 13, 81 Four Years Voyages of Capt. George Roberts, The, 190, 252 Foxon, David, 29, 277n8 frame, narrative, 120, 128, 131–32, 160–63, 165–68, 173–74, 201, 260 France, 154, 178–79, 196 French King Proved a Bastard, The, 22, 196 frontispiece, 32, 132 Frontón, Miguel Ángel, 149 Fryer Bacon, 65, 116 Full and True Account of a Horrid and Barbarous Revenge by Poison, On the Body of Mr. Edmund Curll, A, 51, 79 Galland, Antoine, Arabian Nights Entertainments, 18, 59, 145, 163–66, 177, 181 Gallantry Unmasked, 265 Ganz, Melissa J., 233 Gaskell, Roger, 32, 277n14 Generous Rivals, The, 45, 256 George, Saint, 119, 140 Gesta Romanorum, 106, 114, 123–24, 140 ghosts, 154, 213, 220–21, 224 Gildon, Charles, 77, 284n41, 284n46 Glanvill, Joseph, 14 Glasgow, 53, 55–56

Glorious Life and Actions of St. Whigg, The, 197 Godolphin, Sidney, 197 Golden Spy, The, 45, 203 Goldsmith, Oliver, 6 Gollapudi, Aparna, 246 Gothic, 16 Greene, Jody, 230 Greene, Robert, 7, 28, 115; Pandosto, 116, 122–23, 141, 264, 265, 267 Gregg, Stephen, 230 Griffin, Dustin, 192, 194 Griffin, Robert J., 75, 80, 84 Gueulette, Thomas-Simon, A Thousand and One Quarters of Hours, 49, 167–68 Guilleragues, Vicomte de, Five LoveLetters from a Nun, 151–53, 221 Guy of Warwick, 64, 103, 105, 113, 140, 281n113 gypsies, 66, 228 Hammond, Brean S., 37, 50, 85, 86 Handover, P. M., 57 Hanover Tales, 30, 33 Harley, Robert, 189, 197, 202 Harrington, John, 7; Commonwealth of Oceana, 95, 126–27, 177, 287n54; Oceana and Other Works, 89, 90t, 95, 126 Harrison, Frank Mott, 129 Haskin, Dayton, 130 Hawkesworth, John, 175, 179–80 Hayes, Julie Candler, 171 Haywood, Eliza: and her publishers, 43, 44, 45, 48–49, 52; in literary history, 4, 7, 8, 11, 13, 274n11, 276n60; output of, 80, 86–87, 184; reprinting of works by, 84, 104, 184; as translator, 144, 145. Works: British Recluse, 52; Cleomelia, 261; Fantomina, 86; Idalia, 52; Injur’d Husband, 52, 188t, 259; Love in Excess, 39, 58, 94, 145, 186, 187t, 261, 283n17; Love-Letters

328 · Index

on All Occasions, 266; Masqueraders, 188t; Rash Resolve, 188t; Secret Histories, Novels, and Poems, 91t, 94; Tea-Table, 260; Works, 89, 91t, 94 Head, Richard, 7; English Rogue, 63, 127–28, 140–41, 226, 228, 245, 267 Hearne, Mary, Lover’s Week, 258 Henry I, King, 121 Henry VIII, King, 121 hermit, 129, 150, 152–53, 156, 174, 219–20 Hero and Leander, 64 Highland Rogue, The, 23, 244 Hilliard, Stephen S., 123 Historical Romance of the Wars, between the Mighty Giant Gallieno and the Great Knight Nasonius, An, 53 history: of the book, 11, 15; as fiction term, 17–22, 25, 26; secret, 16–22, 73–74, 195–201; true, 17, 20–22 History of Autonous, The, 268 History of Cardinal Alberoni, The, 32 History of Prince Mirabel’s Infancy, Rise, and Disgrace, The, 197 Hopkins, David, 144, 146 Hoppit, Julian, 41 Houston, R. A., 34, 60 Hume, Robert D., 36, 85, 86 humor, 65–69, 92, 149, 173 Hunter, J. Paul, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 26, 28 illness, 215, 217–18, 239t, 240t, 242 illustrations, 58, 136. See also engraving; woodcuts Impartial Secret History of Arlus, Fortunatus, and Odolphus, The, 197, 265, 266 importation of books, 72 imprint, 42–51 incest, 174, 221 India, 128, 250 individualism, 10, 12, 63–64, 67 initials of authors, 76–77, 84 intellectual property, 71, 75, 85

Ireland, 72–73, 277n8. See also Dublin Irish Rogue, The, 265 Iter Lunare, 22 James II, King, 151, 154 jests, 8, 59–60, 67–69, 112, 281n128 Jilted Bridegroom, The, 18 John Frank, 65 Johnny Armstrong, 63–64 Johnson, Charles: General History of the Pirates, 188t, 226, 238–40, 245; History of the Life and Intrigues of that Celebrated Courtezan, and Posture-Mistress, Eliz. Mann, 244–45 Johnson, Richard, 115, 123; Seven Champions of Christendom, 119, 124, 141, 266; Tom a Lincoln, 119 Johnson, Samuel, 6; Dictionary, 26, 69 justice, 213, 217, 227, 236–43, 251–52 Kay, Donald, 39 Keach, Benjamin, 7, 88, 117, 131; Progress of Sin, 19, 77, 125, 133, 135–36; Travels of True Godliness, 19, 24, 77, 135–36, 141 Kent, Robert, Timely Warning, 54 kidnapping, 228, 247, 251 King, Gregory, 35–37 King, Kathryn R., 222, 223 Knight, Charles A., 192 Knight, Stephen, 109 La Calprenède, Gauthier de Coste, Cassandra, 128–29, 255 Laclos, Pierre Choderlos de, 7 La Croix, François Pétis de, Turkish Tales, 18, 49, 58, 166 Ladies Tales, 212 La Fayette, Madame de, 7, 97 La Fontaine, Jean de, 70 La Motte, Antoine Houdar de: Discourse on Fable, 69–70; Fables, 70 Lane, William, 269

Index · 329

Lansdowne, Lord, 58 La Roche-Guilhem, Anne de, 97 Lawlis, Merritt E., 122 Lazarillo de Tormes, 14, 145 Le Huet, Pierre-Daniel, History of Romances, 22 Leigh, David J., 130 Le Noble, Eustace, 84; Abra-Mulè, 177 Le Pesant, Pierre, Life of Mary Stewart, 54 Le Sage, Alain-René, 97, 182, 264; Devil upon Two Sticks / Le Diable Boiteux, 49, 56, 58, 144, 157, 160–62; Gil Blas, 49, 144, 157, 159–60, 162 L’Estrange, Roger, 22, 145 letters, 16–18, 20, 139, 166, 220–22, 256 Letters from the Living to the Living, 73–74 Letters from the Palace of Fame, 44 lewdness, 65–66 libel, 71, 73–74, 83, 194, 208 Liberty of Conscience, 206 libraries, 29, 40 Licensing Act, expiration of, 45, 71 Life and Adventures of Capt. John Avery, The, 37, 242, 265–66 Life and Surprizing Adventures of Mirandor, The, 266 Life of Donna Rosina, The, 21, 155–56 Life of the Countess de Gondez, The, 146 Lintot, Bernard, 86 Lisarda, 26, 169 literacy, 3, 34, 41, 60, 67 literary history, 3–7, 11–15, 26, 30, 88, 98, 103–6, 170; feminist, 12–13 Lockwood, Thomas, 37 Loewenstein, Joseph, 71 Long Meg, 63, 116, 265 Longueville, Peter, The Hermit, 23, 105, 186, 188t, 212, 218–20, 261, 263 Louis XIV, King, 153–54, 178–80, 196, 202 Love, Harold, 76

love: anti-, 259–61; tragedy, 257–58, 261; unrequited, 222, 257 Love in Distress, 82, 255 Love in its Variety, 145 Love-Letters between a Certain Late Nobleman and the Famous Mr. Wilson, 256–57 Love-Letters between a Nobleman and His Sister, 124, 133, 138–41, 226, 246 Loveman, Kate, 195 Lovers Tales, 18, 90t Lucas, Theophilus, Memoirs of the Lives, Intrigues, and Comical Adventures of the Most Famous Gamesters, 32, 241 Lucian, 156, 212 Lyly, John, Euphues, 116, 121–23, 267 Lynch, Kathleen M., 49 Madagascar: Or, Robert Drury’s Journal, 37, 252 magic, 65, 164–65, 168 Maintenon, Madame de, 154 Manchester, 56 Mandarins and Proatins of the Britomartian Empire, The, 21 Mandeville, Sir John, Travels, 106, 111–12, 141, 265, 286n23 Manley, Delarivier, 4, 7, 13, 14, 276n60. Works: Memoirs of Europe, 265–66; New Atalantis, 183, 187t, 191, 195, 197–201, 205, 206, 261, 269; Power of Love, 45; Rivella, 32, 33 Manley, John, 198 Manlove, C. N., 130 Marivaux, Pierre de, 7 Marschalk, Lacy, 268 Marshall, Ashley, 193 Marshall, William, 95, 96 martyrs, 119 Marx, Karl, 13 Mary of Modena, 154 Masham, Abigail, 197 Maslen, R. W., 122

330 · Index

Matchless Rogue, The, 241 Mayer, Robert, 217–18 Mayo, Robert D., 39 McBurney, William Harlin, 4, 8, 76, 77 McKenzie, D. F., 31 McKeon, Michael, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 26, 28, 106, 131, 143, 169–70, 191, 263 McKillop, Alan Dugald, 6, 14, 233 McMurran, Mary Helen, 144 medieval fiction, 4–5, 48, 64, 106–15, 265 Memoires of the Dutchess Mazarine, The, 19 memoirs, 16, 17, 19–20, 22, 25 Memoirs of a Cavalier, 22, 187t, 253 Memoirs of a Certain Island, 205 Memoirs of the Marq. de Langallerie, The, 265 Mentz, Steve, 13 Mercenary Lover, The, 258–59 Micklethwait, Mark, 146 middle class, 3, 40 Milhous, Judith, 85 Milton, John, 49, 96 Mish, Charles C., 4, 8, 76, 111, 125, 133 modernization of prose, 106–13, 181 Modern Novels, 97 Moll Flanders, 15, 23, 186, 188t, 226, 228, 233–36, 261, 266, 269 money: in fiction, 230, 231–32, 235, 244, 251, 252; as narrator, 203 Monmouth, Duke of, 138–39 monopoly, 45, 48 Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 198 Montalbán, Juan Pérez de, Diverting Works of Miguel de Cervantes, 89, 169, 173–74 Montesquieu, Charles, baron de, Persian Letters, 49, 166–67, 266 morality, 10, 20, 64–65, 117, 230; natural state of, 229, 232, 234 morals: abstract, 208; explicit, 23–24, 110, 114, 136, 158, 163, 193, 200, 203,

214, 216, 223–24, 236, 247, 260; implicit, 128, 201, 247, 258; not required, 111; as truth, 69–70 Moral State of England, The, 128–29, 132 More, Sir Thomas, Utopia, 177 Morphew, John, 44t, 45–46 Moseley, C. W. R. D., 111 Motteux, Peter, 170–72 Mounsey, Chris, 248 Mountfort, William, 117–18 Moussa-Mahmoud, Fatma, 165 Mudge, Bradford K., 13, 200 Mueller, Judith C., 209 Mullan, John, 82–83 Munday, Anthony, 108–9 murder, 66, 239t, 240t, 247, 252 mutiny, 211, 229, 239t Narrative of all the Robberies, Escapes, &c. of John Sheppard, A, 237–38 Nashe, Thomas, 5, 7; Unfortunate Traveller, 5, 14, 116, 123–24, 141 nationalism, 107, 112–13, 116, 119, 140 Neve, Richard, Merry Companion, 68 Newbery, John, 58 New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, 4, 8 Newcastle, 56 Newcomb, Lori Humphrey, 122 Newgate prison, 234, 235, 237, 249 New Historicism, 13 Newman, Ian, 230 newspapers, 25, 33, 39, 41, 57–59, 196 New Voyage Round the World, A, 253 Nine Pious Pilgrims, The, 5, 183, 193, 212, 223 Nine Worthies of the World, The, 125, 137 nobility, 148, 196, 255, 265 Noble, Francis, 269 Noel, Thomas, 70 No Jest Like a True Jest, 126 Nokes, David, 192

Index · 331

Norris, Thomas, 44 North, Marcy L., 76, 81, 84 nostalgia, 107, 112–13, 116 novel: definition of, 5–11, 16–17, 19–22, 24, 26, 37, 264; as English, 11, 15; length of, 8, 10, 11, 16, 19–20, 26, 29–30, 35–37, 40, 47, 51–52, 60, 67–68, 165, 266; origins of, 10, 11, 13, 26; “popular,” 14, 24, 28, 40–42, 266; rise of, 3, 6, 10–14, 26, 76, 115, 169, 263–64 novelty, 10, 15, 45, 59, 137, 254 nuns, 149, 151–53, 221 Odyssey, 175–78 Olivaires of Castile, 146–47, 149–51 Ormond, Duke of, 198 Ovid, 114, 124 Ozell, John, 145 Pagan Prince, The, 78, 265 Palmer, Melvin D., 93, 163 Palmeri, Frank, 166 paper: cost of, 29–31, 277n8, 277n14; production of, 29; quality of, 29–31, 58; taxation of, 30 parable, 24 parody, 158–59, 207, 210 parties, political, 199–200. See also politics Patterson, Annabel, 70 Paulson, Ronald, 180, 192 Pepys, Samuel, 60 Perfidious Brethren, The, 224 Perfidious P—, The, 18 Perplex’d Dutchess, The, 259 Perrault, Charles, 163 Persia, 166–67, 180 perspective, narrative. See speaker, fictional Petrarch, 174 Philips, Ambrose, 22, 145 picaresque, 111, 127, 155–56, 169 Piers Plowman, 115

Pilgrim’s Progress, spurious continuation, 23 piracy: of books, 55, 71–72, 105; at sea, 228–31, 238–42, 246, 251 Pix, Mary, Inhumane Cardinal, 196 play texts, 25, 47 Pleasant History of Cawwood the Rook, The, 62, 126 Pleasures of Matrimony, The, 187t Plomer, Henry Robert, 48 Plymouth, 56 Pocock, J. G. A., 126 politics, 19, 70, 73–74. See also fiction: political; parties, political Pollard, A. J., 109 Pollard, Graham, 29, 31 Pollard, M., 54, 73, 277n8 Ponder, Nathaniel, 46, 134, 288n70 Pooley, Roger, 123 Pope, the, 136, 178–79 Pope, Alexander, 37, 38, 49, 71, 144 Pope, Walter, 146, 174 Porch, Mallory Anne, 268 Portland, Earl of, 198 Préchac, Jean de, Disguis’d Prince, 145 prefaces, 20–25, 81–82, 113, 146, 178, 207, 242 Prentice’s Tragedy, The [George Barnwell ], 63, 65, 281n107 Price, Leah, 96 prices of books, 28–41, 36t, 49, 54, 58, 59–60, 67, 68, 72, 88–91, 97, 202, 204, 223, 248, 251, 263, 266 Princess Cloria, The, 126 print: business of, 5, 15, 25, 28, 31–34, 38–41, 54, 71; cost of manufacturing, 29–30, 40, 51; culture of, 15, 87; labor of, 31–33; process of manufacturing, 29–33; quality of, 33; run, 31, 41, 277n9 prison, 66, 242, 246–47. See also Newgate prison Progress of the Christian Pilgrim, The, 212, 225

332 · Index

prostitution, 219, 235 Protestantism, 136, 215, 216, 218, 224 Proudfoot, Richard, 119 Providence, 128, 214–17, 219–20, 232, 247 Prude, The, 188t pseudonyms, 76–80, 82 publication: joint, 43, 44, 48, 50–53, 97; by parts, 38–39, 202; by subscription, 37–38, 54–55, 96 publishing, provincial, 53, 56, 71 puns, 67–68 Quarles, Francis, 123 Quevedo, Francisco de, 182; Fortune in Her Wits, 81–82, 144, 145, 156; Visions, 22, 105, 145, 156–57 Quintana, Francisco de, Hippolyto and Aminta, 149 Rabb, Melinda Alliker, 195–96, 197, 201 Rabelais, François de, 7; Works, 92 Ramsay, Andrew; Travels of Cyrus, 180, 266 Randall, Dale B., 89 rape, 151, 200, 242, 243, 258 Raven, James, 28, 29, 31, 42, 53, 57, 79, 80, 81, 84, 87 Rawson, Claude, 193 Ray, William, 7, 11, 13, 143, 275n36 readers: age of, 129, 163, 248; class of, 23, 29, 34, 36–38, 50, 60, 68, 223, 264; desire of, 28, 59, 113, 224–25, 234, 235–36; education of, 60–61, 124; expectations of, 10, 11, 15, 23, 26, 134, 262; general knowledge of, 64, 177, 196; income of, 28–29, 34–37, 40, 50, 59–61, 67, 68; interpretations of, 21, 193; outside London, 57, 60; number of, 40–42; shopping habits of, 25, 58, 89, 98, 99; types of, 3, 59, 114, 193, 224–25; women, 38, 79, 248, 264 reading: aloud, 68; practice of, 123,

128–29, 130, 136–37, 194. See also allegory: as way of reading realism, 10, 20, 21, 118–19, 164–66, 168, 174, 192, 194, 246, 265; psychological, 151. See also verisimilitude Reeve, Clara, Progress of Romance, 98 Reflections on the Various Effects of Love, 260 religion, critique of, 65, 208–10. See also anti-Catholicism repentance, 65, 127–28, 215, 227–36, 238, 243 reprints, 4, 9, 15, 48, 53–56, 72–73, 277n9; copyright of, 103; quantity of, 103–5; as sign of success, 125, 129, 133, 148, 152, 183, 185, 190, 201, 214, 227 revenge, 201, 252, 259 Reynard the Fox, 5, 106, 110–11, 142, 265, 267 Richardson, Samuel, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11; Pamela, 4, 10, 26 Richetti, John J., 7, 10, 14, 26, 191, 198, 201, 222, 240, 247, 263 Riley, Patrick, 180 Rival Mother, The, 99 Roberts, John, 43–44, 50, 52, 144 Robin Hood, 5, 105–6, 108–11, 265, 267 Rogers, Pat, 51, 144, 146 rogue, 127–28, 134, 135, 219, 228, 231 roman à clef, 19, 198–99, 206, 208, 210 romance, 3, 10, 13, 16, 17, 19–23, 26, 131; parody of, 158–59 Roper, Abel, 25 Rose, Mark, 71, 82, 83, 84 Rouse, Robert Allen, 113 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 7; Emile, 180 Rowe, Elizabeth Singer, 7, 11; Friendship in Death, 105, 183, 186, 188t, 212, 220–22 Royal Mistresses of France, The, 19 Sacheverell, Henry, Perils of False Brethren, 41 St Clair, William, 40, 41

Index · 333

Saint-Évremond, Charles de, Female Falshood, 158 Salzman, Paul, 7, 12, 59, 106, 131, 156, 169 Sands, Donald B., 111 Saracens, 112–13 Sare, Richard, 145 Sargent, Carole Fungaroli, 199 satire, 22, 156–57, 159–62, 166–67, 178, 189, 191–212, 265 Saunders, Francis, 144 Savage, John, 157 scandal, 9, 19, 44, 74, 83, 137–39, 153–54, 175, 179, 180, 210 Scarron, Paul, 73, 94, 97, 98, 154. Works: Comical Romance, 158–59; Scarron’s Novels, 90t, 92, 157; Whole Comical Works, 58, 90t, 92, 145, 157–58 Scarron Incens’d, 21, 32, 154 Scarron’s City Romance, 79, 158 Scheuermann, Mona, 13 Scotch Rogue, The, 187t, 241–42 Scotland, 72. See also Edinburgh scripture, 135–36, 215, 218. See also Bible Scudéry, Madeleine de, 7, 11, 64; Artamenes, 79 Seager, Nicholas, 217, 243 secondhand books, 36–37, 47, 142, 191 Secret History of Queen Zarah, The, 19, 21–22, 24, 74, 83, 187t, 197 Secret History of the Court of the Emperor Justinian, The, 139 Secret History of the Duke of Alançon and Q. Elizabeth, The, 196 Secret History of the Dutchess of Portsmouth, The, 83, 196, 265 Secret History of the Most Renowned Q. Elizabeth and the E. of Essex, The, 63, 83, 97, 133, 137–38, 191, 266 Secret History of the October Club, The, 19, 83, 197 Secret History of the Reigns of K. Charles II and K. James II, The, 78, 139 seduction, 138, 151, 152, 198, 200, 258, 261 Select Collection of Novels, A, 58, 97

sequels, 38–39, 110–11, 135, 136, 152, 169, 173 serial publication, 29, 39, 173 Seven Portuguese Letters, 152 Seven Wise Masters of Rome, The, 120, 123, 124, 141, 191, 266 Shakespeare, William, 49, 82, 122 Sharp, Andrew, 126 Sharrock, Roger, 134 Sheffery Morgan, 65 Shelton, Thomas, 170, 172 Sher, Richard B., 53 Sherbo, Arthur, 210 Sherburn, George, 6 shipwreck, 175, 204, 214, 218–20, 240t, 246, 248 Shrewsbury, 56 Sidney, Philip, 5, 7, 84; Arcadia, 3, 116, 123, 124, 141, 148, 255 Siebert, Fredrick Seaton, 73 Siege of Mentz, The, 247 Sir Bevis of Southampton, 41, 64, 103, 105–8, 113, 140, 141, 281n113 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 106, 115 Sir Richard Whittington, 116–17 Skretkowicz, Victor, 123 slavery, 175, 214, 232–33, 251 Smeed, J. W., 117 Smith, Alexander: History of the Lives of the Most Noted Highway-men, 10, 187t, 226, 241; Secret History of the Lives of the Most Celebrated Beauties, 19 Smith, Amy Elizabeth, 152 Smithson, Samuel, 113 Smollett, Tobias, 6, 8, 159–60, 175, 290n45 Sophocles, 178 Spacks, Patricia Meyer, 7 Spain, 149, 153, 156–58, 169, 174 Spanish Libertines, The, 46 speaker, fictional, 18, 19, 20, 23, 39, 63, 127, 132, 154, 192, 216

334 · Index

Spectator, The, 39, 40–41, 213 Spencer, Jane, 12–13, 93–94, 200, 220, 247 Spender, Dale, 13 Spielman, David Wallace, 244 spiritual autobiography, 5, 13, 70, 129 Spufford, Margaret, 28, 45, 61, 66 Stamp Tax of 1712, 57, 71 Starr, G. A., 227, 244 Stationers’ Company, 60, 71 Statute of Anne, 4, 53, 55, 71–73, 80, 84–85. See also copyright Steele, Richard, 213 Sterne, Laurence, 6, 7, 8 Stevens, John, 145, 147, 170–72, 174 story, 17, 18, 20, 22 structure, narrative, 109–12, 118, 120, 122, 128, 132, 140 Suarez, Michael F., 104 suicide, 66, 239t, 257 Surprize, The, 193, 212 suspension of disbelief, 164 Sutton, Anne F., 116 Swaminathan, Srividhya, 233 Swift, Jonathan, 6, 7, 10, 83, 84, 184; A Tale of a Tub, 18, 105, 183, 186, 187t, 205–10, 212, 225, 265, 269, 292n42; Travels into Several Remote Regions [Gulliver’s Travels], 23, 105, 186, 188t, 193, 205, 206, 210–12 Symmons, Mr., Whimsical Lovers, The, 256 tale, 16–18, 20, 22 taxonomy, 7, 12, 262 Temple, Kathryn, 199 Term Catalogues, 4, 37 Terrasson, Jean, Life of Sethos, 268 Theobald, Lewis, Antiochus and Stratonice, 256 Theophania, 126 Thousand and One Days, The, 22, 144 Tierney, James, 57 title pages, 15–23, 25–26, 35, 59, 75–80,

82, 84, 89, 92, 97–99, 136; edition listed on, 105; layout of, 131; puffing on, 164; translator named on, 145 titles, long, 59 Todd, Janet, 13, 85, 93, 200 Toland, John, 126 Tom Ladle, 65–66 Tom Tram, 66, 117 Tonson, Jacob, 44t, 49–50, 58, 144 trade publisher, 46 translation: business of, 40, 45, 49, 79, 89, 92, 97–98, 147; comparison of, 171–72, 179–80; copyright of, 144; in literary history, 14; practice of, 143–48, 170–72, 179–80; quantity of, 9, 15, 73, 143, 184, 185, 267; theory of, 146–47, 170–71 translators: as hacks, 144; payments to, 144–45; on title pages, 87, 145 transportation (of criminals), 128, 235 Treacherous Confident, The, 53 Treadwell, Michael, 42 Trent, W. P., 6 tricks, card, 68 trickster, 65–66, 68–69, 109–10, 117 True Secret History of the Lives and Reigns of all the Kings and Queens of England, The, 196, 204 truth. See claims to truth; fiction: versus fact Turkey, 166, 224 Turley, Hans, 230 Turner, Cheryl, 198, 220 type: black letter, 48, 113; cost of, 31 Tyssot de Patot, Simon, Travels and Adventures of James Massey, 268 underworld, 178 Unhappy Lovers, The, 257 Unparallel’d Varieties, 136 Valentine and Orson, 106, 113–14, 141, 265 value of books, 33, 58, 72

Index · 335

Varty, Kenneth, 110 Vaughan, Walter, Adventures of Five Englishmen from Pulo Condoro, 248 vengeance. See revenge verisimilitude, 3, 12, 21–22, 64, 131, 264. See also realism versification, 138, 173 Vertue Rewarded, 193 Vignacourt, Adrien de la Vieuville, Prince Jakaya, 268 violence, 66–68 Voyages and Adventures of Captain Robert Boyle, The, 186, 188t, 226, 245, 249–52 Voyages, Dangerous Adventures, and Imminent Escapes of Captain Richard Falconer, The, 78, 187t, 190, 253 Wallis, P. J., 37 Walmsley, Peter, 220 Walsh, Marcus, 206, 210 war, 66–67, 118–19 Ward, Edward, 173 Warner, William B., 7, 13, 14, 26, 191, 199, 263

Watt, Ian, 6, 11, 12, 13, 14, 26, 40, 264 Watt, Tessa, 61 Wellington, Richard, 25, 43, 44t, 47–48, 58, 266, 279n53, 279n65 Westminster, 69 Whittington, Sir Richard (Dick Whittington), 116, 140 Wild, Jonathan, 237 Williams, Ioan, 10, 14, 143, 170, 173, 275n36 Wolsey, Cardinal Thomas, 121 Woman’s Malice, 196, 204 women writers. See authors: women Wonderful Prodigies of Judgment and Mercy, 133, 136 Woodbridge, Linda, 67 woodcuts, 32, 45, 48, 60, 110, 112, 113 Worde, Wynkyn de, 106, 107, 113 Wroth, Mary, Urania, 126 Young, Edward, 38 Young Man’s Guide to a Vertuous Life, The, 193, 223 Zingis, 99, 148

336 · Index