Abstract
Helen Maria Williams gained celebrity status in the 1780s as a heroine of sensibility. She was also a clever polemicist and succeeded in establishing her own brand of political philosophy, exploiting commercial techniques and basing her arguments upon values traditionally considered as “female”. This article explores Williams's rhetorical strategies in her writing, with a particular focus on her Letters Written in France (1790). Williams foregrounds her own authorial performance in this popular text and is concerned throughout with the concept of theatricality. She even casts herself in the role of Liberty—yet by 1798 she was being satirically typecast as Lechery by hostile critics. This article considers Williams's fall from grace and how her public image as a literary darling is transformed into a stereotype of the “petticoat politician”: licentious, intemperate and wild.
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