So, if you’re keeping track of my travels in women’s writing in the 17th and 18th centuries, we have had Rebecca Romney writing about them in Jane Austen’s Bookshelf and Dale Spender in Mothers of the Novel, as well as Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko (1688) and Delarivier Manley’s The Adventures of Rivella (1714).

Now Eliza Haywood (c.1693-1756), who was working in the same vein as her predecessors. Even called out with them, by Alexander Pope’s disparaging verse “Corinna”, which was directed at the women who had picked up their pens to write (their work now serious competition for the fellas, both in print and on the stage).

Love in Excess was originally published in three volumes in 1719—the same year as Robinson Crusoe—and it was a bestseller too. So popular was she that, during the 1720s, she was writing a novel every three months on average. Each of the volumes is about as long as Oroonoko—which is to say, not very—but there is no justification of it (as being true to life, as having been witnessed by the author, or any of that) and it reads more like a romance.

But a romance with some spice and some excitement (more than one would guess). The convention of the time dictated that a woman who demonstrated her affection for a man, who had not previously and explicitly and formally outlined his intention to woo her, was undeniably immoral. But here we have two women smitten with Count D’elmont, and social expectations overwritten by desire.

Everyone loves D’elmont, but D’elmont’s got eyes for only one woman. (David Oakleaf, in his introduction to the Broadview Press edition of this novel, suggests that through the character of D’elmont, Haywood raises all sorts of questions about how women and men typically behave in other “amatory” fiction. Think: Pamela. But he notes that Haywood’s also concerned with how ambition impacts women’s relationships with one another in their pursuit of a man, not only with the subordinate role afforded to women in society.)

“Every word she spoke, was like a dagger to D’elmont’s heart; yet he so artfully managed his endeavors, between the authority of the guardian, and the entreaties of a friend, that she was at last overcome. Tis hard for the severest virtue to deny themselves the sight of the person beloved, and whatever resolutions we make, there are but few, who like [So-and-So] might not by such a lover, be prevailed upon to break them.”

There is an inappropriate letter of declaration, an interrupted secret meeting after dark, and someone gets threatened with being sentenced to a convent. And THEN, things get exciting. Almost too exciting.

New characters emerge—some as go-betweens and some as new love interests. Everyone has so many feelings, and they’re all over the place. There are complicated machinations, and it’s hard to tell whose intent to play match-maker is authentic from who’s simply striving in their own interest.

(Where the narrative diverged in Behn’s novel, as when it becomes more of a travelogue—with geographical and cultural details—here a couple of characters have their backstories inserted in such a way as to offer different understandings of another key character. As though Haywood is content to lay all her eggs in the romance basket: no edifying content required.)

“But whatever dominion, honor and virtue may have over our waking thoughts, it is certain that they fly from the closed eyes; our passions then exert their forceful power, and that which is most predominant in the soul, agitates the fancy, and brings even things impossible to pass. Desire, with watchful diligence repelled, returns with greater violence in unguarded sleep, and overthrows the vain efforts of day.”

It’s very dramatic (from a dagger to talk of dominion), but it does make sense (as much sense as a story about feelings can make). It’s clear Haywood had a plan for her story and, regardless of how quickly she wrote it, it’s cohesive and exciting (and perhaps the work of modern editors helped by standardising the language). And her connections to the theatre world also seem to have boosted her public profile and popularity after this early success.

But I enjoyed a shorter work of hers even more: Fantomina, originally published in 1725 but freshly reprinted by Renard Press in the U.K. (with a helpful introduction by three scholars who are knowledgeable enough to make it all sound simple: Creel, Qualls, and Sagal). I urge you to peruse their Classic reprints: a curious and enticing selection. (And shipping to Canada? Both reasonable and responsive.)

In Fantomina, a young woman (whose aunt isn’t paying close enough attention) decides to act the part of a prostitute to see if she can draw the attention of Beauplaisir. The experiment requires far more acting than she anticipated, and she seems to learn a great deal, about the lengths to which she will go in pursuit of this relationship and the lengths to which he will go—first, in pursuit of her, but then, in an attempt to avoid responsibility.

What I found most interesting was how modern some of her concerns seem. In her initial disguise, she notes that “… the Knowledge of her Birth would not have influenc’d him with Respect sufficient to have curb’d the wild Exuberance of his luxurious Wishes, or made him in that longing,–that impatient Moment, change the Form of his Addresses.”

And if you’re reading between those lines, Exuberance translates into, well, secretion. Ahem. But, don’t worry: she’s got “no Apprehensions of any Amorous Violence but where she wish’d to find it” and there’s a plan in the works to expose his violent behaviour (ok, so you were right to worry). But saying more would be spoilery. Quoting the introduction: “Agency, liberation and the boundaries of sexual contact remain just as pertinent today as during Haywood’s lifetime.”

My interest in early women writers stretches back, but in recent years I lost the habit of reading classics. The past two years, I’ve kept a single classic in my hefty stack and it’s made it easier for me to settle into sentences with nearly as many commas as words, and dialogue and longer chapters (not usually all at once).

What’s kept an early 18thC-writer in my stack all year is Bill’s ongoing determination to reach a conclusion in identifying the first novel; his official exploration launches in January, and simply attaching a date to certain reading plans helps me focus when there’s an endless TBR that appeals.

In the process of anticipating Bill’s project, he and Reese have convinced me that Tom Jones is essential—just in general, not in that quest—but there are thirty years between Love in Excess and Tom Jones, so I’m edging towards that.

Next, I’ll write about the two Penelope Aubin novels I’ve read. Only one Ontario public library has her circulating in print, but for those who can read online more easily, there are reproductions online at Internet Archive.

After that, I hope my explorations will take a route something like this:

Francoise de Graffigny’s Lettres d’une Peruvienne (1747)
Sarah Fielding’s The Governess (1749)
Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones (1749)
Eliza Haywood’s The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (1751)
Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote (1752)
Frances Sheridan’s The Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph (1761) Reread
Unca Eliza Winkfield’s The Female American (1767)
Fanny Burney’s Evelina (1778)
Elizabeth Inchbald’s A Simple Story (1791)
Charlotte Smith’s The Old Manor House (1793)
Hannah Foster’s The Coquette, The Boarding School (1799)