The first novel to be written for serial publication by a major female author, Sophia follows the story of two siblings, the virtuous and well-read eponymous heroine and her flighty and coquettish sister. While the latter leads a vapid life in the fashionable world of London, the former flees from a potential seducer to the country, where she pursues true friendship, learning, and an independent living. Previously out of print, the novel explores such issues as the place of female education, the opposition of city and country, the emergence of the literary marketplace, and the development of the individual. This Broadview edition reproduces images from the novel’s original serial publication and also includes other articles from Lennox’s periodical The Lady’s Museum, contemporary reviews of Sophia, and writings on sentimentalism.
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"Norbert Schürer's introduction provides the literary and cultural contexts for this wrongfully neglected novel of a major English novelist. He explains why Lennox was 'the most important female writer in Britain around the middle of the eighteenth century' and describes the innovations Sophia introduced both in its content and its format; it was one of the first novels to be published in serial installments in a magazine. This scrupulously edited volume is a treasure trove of information about Lennox's life, the contemporary publishing world, and pervasive aspects of English culture such as titles, money, and transportation. It is a lively and authoritative contribution to our knowledge of the eighteenth-century British novel." (Ruth Perry )
"While placing Lennox in a patriarchal literary marketplace dominated by Richardson, Fielding, and Dr. Johnson, Schürer provocatively reads this 'two sisters novel' both with and against the grain, to argue that Lennox both affirms and subverts Sophia's moral example and the novel's conservative didacticism. Strengths of this edition include the reproduction and discussion of eighteenth-century illustrations of scenes from the novel, and the reprinting of otherwise hard to find contemporary biographies of 'the celebrated' Charlotte Lennox." (Eve Tavor Bannet )
"While placing Lennox in a patriarchal literary marketplace dominated by Richardson, Fielding, and Dr. Johnson, Schürer provocatively reads this 'two sisters novel' both with and against the grain, to argue that Lennox both affirms and subverts Sophia's moral example and the novel's conservative didacticism. Strengths of this edition include the reproduction and discussion of eighteenth-century illustrations of scenes from the novel, and the reprinting of otherwise hard to find contemporary biographies of 'the celebrated' Charlotte Lennox." (Eve Tavor Bannet )
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The first novel to be written for serial publication by a major female author, Sophia follows the story of two siblings, the virtuous and well-read eponymous heroine and her flighty and coquettish sister. While the latter leads a vapid life in the fashionable world of London, the former flees from a potential seducer to the country, where she pursues true friendship, learning, and an independent living. Previously out of print, the novel explores such issues as the place of female education, the opposition of city and country, the emergence of the literary marketplace, and the development of the individual. This Broadview edition reproduces images from the novel’s original serial publication and also includes other articles from Lennox’s periodical The Lady’s Museum, contemporary reviews of Sophia, and writings on sentimentalism.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
"an agreeable love-tale",
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This review is from: Sophia (Paperback)
SOPHIA is a novel solidly in the sentimental tradition. It first appeared in 1760, not only written by Charlotte Lennox but also serialized in her own monthly magazine - a daring idea that would usher in a whole new publishing methodology.
The story follows the fortunes of a widow and her two daughters after the death of their father, a fine gentleman who squandered his inheritance and left his family destitute. The widow is beautiful, extravagant and frivolous, and her daughter Harriot is just like her. The younger daughter Sophia is not stunning like her sister, but her intelligence, high principles and subtle elegance are ultimately more attractive. Sir Charles Stanley, the rich but morally lax young gentleman essential to the plot, attempts to seduce Harriot, then changes the object of his desire when he beholds the superior Sophia. Various misadventures and misunderstandings ensue to challenge virtue and torment lovers. Charlotte Lennox saw her first novel published when she was twenty. A protégée of Samuel Johnson, she achieved fame in an age when male writers were the dominant powers on the literary scene. Contemporary reviewers praised SOPHIA as "an agreeable love-tale," just the sort of morally improving book young ladies ought to read. But even as a twenty-first-century woman reader, with none of the social restrictions suffered by Sophia, I found myself charmed by the graceful prose style, the engaging story and the characters, all so quaintly reflective of their time and place. The introduction is a bit dry, but I was fascinated by the notes that followed on female property and education, rank and titles, social status of the clergy, currency values and everyday transportation in mid-eighteenth-century England.
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