Sophia

266 Pages·2008·4.724 MB·English

by  Charlotte Lennox, Norbert Schurer

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This electronic material is under
copyright protection and is
provided to a single recipient
for review purposes only.
SOPHIA
A First Modern English Edition of
Les Évangiles des Quenouilles
broadview editions
series editor: L.W. Conolly
THEDISTAFFGOSPELS 1
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Miles Franklin,2 April 1898.Used by permission of the Mitchell
Library,State Library of New South Wales.
2 THEDISTAFFGOSPELS
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SOPHIA
Charlotte Lennox
Les Évangiles des Quenouilles
translated by Thomas K.Abbott
with revisions by Lara Denis
edited by Norbert Schürer
broadview editions
THEDISTAFFGOSPELS 3
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©2008 Norbert Schürer
All rights reserved.The use of any part of this publication reproduced,transmitted in
any form or by any means,electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording,or other-
wise,or stored in a retrieval system,without prior written consent of the publisher—
or in the case of photocopying,a licence from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright
Licensing Agency),One Yonge Street,Suite 1900,Toronto,Ontario M5E 1E5—is an
infringement of the copyright law.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Lennox,Charlotte,ca.1729-1804
Sophia / Charlotte Lennox ;edited by Norbert Schürer.
(Broadview editions)
First published in serial form between Mar.1760 and Feb.1761 under title:The
history of Harriot and Sophia.Published as a novel in 1762 under title:Sophia.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-55111-641-9
I.Schürer,Norbert. II. Title. III. Series.
PR3541.L27S66 2008 823′.6 C2007-905812-4
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Contents
Acknowledgements (cid:127) 7
Introduction (cid:127) 9
Charlotte Lennox:ABrief Chronology (cid:127) 43
A Note on the Text (cid:127) 45
A Note on Female Property and Education (cid:127) 46
A Note on Rank and Titles (cid:127) 46
A Note on the Clergy (cid:127) 47
A Note on British Currency (cid:127) 48
A Note on Transportation (cid:127) 48
Sophia (cid:127) 51
Appendix A:Textual Variants (cid:127) 201
Appendix B:Lennox’s Life (cid:127) 205
1. “Mrs.Lennox,”The British Magazine and Review
(July 1783) (cid:127) 205
2. Obituary,The Gentleman’s Magazine(January 1804) (cid:127) 211
3. Obituary,The European Magazine(February 1804) (cid:127) 213
4. “Memoir of Mrs.Lennox,”The Lady’s Monthly
Museum(June 1813) (cid:127) 213
Appendix C:Reviews of Sophia (cid:127) 217
1. The Critical Review(May 1762) (cid:127) 217
2. The Library(May 1762) (cid:127) 217
3. The British Magazine(June 1762) (cid:127) 218
4. The Gentleman’s Magazine(June 1762) (cid:127) 218
5. The Monthly Review(July 1762) (cid:127) 218
6. Books printed by and for James Hoey,junior
(advertisement from 1763) (cid:127) 219
Appendix D:Selections from The Lady’s Museum (cid:127) 221
1. The Lady’s Museum(March 1760) (cid:127) 221
2. “Philosophy for the Ladies,”The Lady’s Museum(April
1760) (cid:127) 237
3. “To the Author of the Lady’s Museum,”The Lady’s
Museum(May 1760) (cid:127) 240
4. “Of the Importance of the Education of Daughters,”
The Lady’s Museum(June 1760) (cid:127) 246
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Appendix E:Sentimentalism and Moral Philosophy (cid:127) 249
1. From Anthony Ashley Cooper,Earl of Shaftesbury,
Characteristicks of Men,Manners,Opinions,Times
(1711) (cid:127) 249
2. From David Hume,A Treatise of Human Nature
(1739–40) (cid:127) 251
3. From Adam Smith,The Theory of Moral Sentiments(1759) (cid:127) 253
4. From Henry Mackenzie,The Lounger(1785) (cid:127) 254
5. From Mary Alcock,Poems(1799) (cid:127) 258
Select Bibliography and Works Cited (cid:127) 263
6 CONTENTS
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Acknowledgements
I first began to enjoy Charlotte Lennox’s writing,and to work on
Sophia,in the course of my dissertation;I would like to thank my
advisor, Dr. Jennifer Thorn, for her unflagging support over the
past decade. Once this edition began taking shape, I benefited
from both the suggestions and advice of the kind folks at Broad-
view, particularly Julia Gaunce. I could not have completed the
textual work on Sophia without the assistance of various well-
informed and helpful librarians at the British Library and at the
Huntington Library.Part of my work was supported at my home
institution,California State University,Long Beach,with a grant
for release time from the Scholarly and Creative Activities Com-
mittee.Most of all,I would like to thank my friend and colleague
Dr.Susan Carlile for her constant encouragement and scholarly
support during the preparation of this edition.
SOPHIA 7
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8 INTRODUCTION
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Introduction
Charlotte Lennox was arguably the most important female writer
in Britain around the middle of the eighteenth century. Of her
better-known contemporaries,Eliza Haywood (1693–1756) was
still writing, but Haywood’s most influential books had been
written several decades earlier; Sarah Fielding (1710–68) was
publishing novels and criticism, but was overshadowed by her
brother Henry;and Sarah Scott (1720–95) had not yet composed
her more successful novels, which would be published in the
1760s. Lennox stands out from these and other contemporaries
in two ways.
First,her work is notable for its portrayal (and at times its cri-
tique) of women’s lives in eighteenth-century English society.
Sophia,a novel written within both the moral fiction and the sen-
timental novel conventions, investigates some of the options
available to women through the story of two sisters who are
thrown into difficult circumstances and make very different
choices in life. At first glance, the authorial voice seems to
approve only of the decisions made by Sophia,the more “proper”
sister;however,there is a subtext in the novel,indirectly creating
space for an understanding of Harriot,the older sister.
As a writer, Lennox also explored the spectrum of profes-
sional possibilities for career authors,especially women.She was
one of the first women writers to use the literary conventions of
moral fiction and the sentimental novel to explore such issues as
rank and money and concerns with female literary authority.
Sophia’s original publication format was also innovative: it was
one of the first novels written by a major author in the eigh-
teenth century (of either sex) specifically for publication in a
periodical—Lennox’s own The Lady’s Museum(1760–61,here it
was titled “The History of Harriot and Sophia”; it was later
republished in the form we know it today as Sophia).In addition,
the novel breaks new ground in its material production with the
two illustrations included in its initial release in her journal.By
experimenting with these publication formats (and others),
Lennox sought a more secure living as a woman writer and
proved to be an adept, flexible, and fast-moving author. Given
that the literary scene was almost entirely dominated by male
writers, however, it was no surprise that Lennox faced many
challenges.
SOPHIA 9
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The Literary Marketplace in Mid-Eighteenth-Century
England
In 1740s and 50s Britain,two writers of prose fiction in England,
in particular, towered above all others: Samuel Richardson and
Henry Fielding.Richardson (1689–1761),a printer by trade,rev-
olutionized conceptions of literature with his epistolary novel
Pamela(1740),which spawned countless continuations and refu-
tations, critical commentaries, operas, paintings, even waxworks
and hand fans.Pamela tells the story of the eponymous virtuous
servant, who is pursued by her master,“Mr. B—.” Mr. B— ini-
tially tries to seduce Pamela by any means possible, including
kidnapping and threatened rape,but by the end of the novel he is
reformed and the two marry. While some contemporaries
admired the novel’s psychological insight and social critique,
others saw it as a threat to the established order (a maid aspiring
to marrying her master) and objected to what they considered
prurient scenes (including attempted rapes and cross-dressing).
In the preface to Pamela,Richardson himself mentions two goals
for his novel:he wants “to Divert and Entertain,and at the same
time to Instruct, and Improve the Minds of the YOUTH of both
Sexes”(3).He later adds that instruction is more important than
entertainment, and that “diverting” writing should primarily
serve the purpose of moral improvement. His ultimate goal, he
claims, is “to inculcate Religion and Morality in so easy and
agreeable a manner, as shall render them equally delightful and
profitable to the younger Class of Readers”(3).
Henry Fielding (1707–54), who started his career as a suc-
cessful dramatist and later became a magistrate, responded to
Pamela first with the spoof Shamela and then with his own first
novel,Joseph Andrews (both 1741).Shamela parodies Pamela for
its perceived naïvete about social interaction, while Joseph
Andrews offers a “biography”of Pamela’s “brother”Joseph,who
has a very different idea of virtue than his sister.In the tradition
of Don Quixote, the penniless and hapless stable-boy Joseph
wanders around the English countryside, surviving a series of
adventures that ultimately end with his marriage.In the preface
to Joseph Andrews, Fielding calls his work a “comic romance”
(25):it treats characters from the lower social classes (in contrast
to “serious romance”) and imitates the “real” world (unlike the
burlesque,which made little attempt at realism).The first chapter
places the novel in the tradition of biography that “affords […]
excellent use and instruction, finely calculated to sow the seeds
10 INTRODUCTION