Abstract
122 ample? How did they shape forms they shared with their male contemporaries— forms that have little interest for us today, but that were compelling to the entire culture of the eighteenth century (religious verse being the most significant, as well as the most obvious, example)? This outline does structure the study, but it does not point to Ms. Backscheider’s organic understanding and deep knowledge of eighteenth-century life, culture, and thought. This book could be described as a cultural biography, and it is a great strength that Ms. Backscheider draws on strategies of presentation more common to the biographer (and, of course, she is a biographer) than the literary critic or cultural historian . Early on we are fully engaged with the personalities as well as the works of Finch and Rowe. Later, the same is true of Jane Bereton and Charlotte Smith. Ms. Backscheider effectively re-creates the atmosphere in which these women lived and worked and wrote. We begin to see that the eighteenth-century world was centered on poetry more than we have ever realized—the ability to read poetry effectively is everywhere referenced, in novels, in diaries, in essays; songs are interspersed in all the plays of the time; extempore poetic composition was a feature of social life. These are things we have long known, but Ms. Backscheider’s description of the domain in which women lived and wrote makes the scene come alive. It seems life in eighteenth-century England was lived to the beat of meter and the sound of rhyme. Every student of eighteenth-century literature will want to own this book—not only for its importance as a major scholarly statement, but also for the pleasure of reading and rereading, in whole or in part. Ms. Backscheider’s incidental observations are as compelling, and as just, as her major arguments. Both books call for further work in the field. Ms. Prescott and Mr. Shuttleton emphasize the need for editions of women poets, and some of these poets are the subject of current editorial projects. Ms. Backscheider begins her book by noting that every chapter could have been the subject of a full-length study. She too ends with a call for further work: ‘‘the reassessment of Restoration and eighteenth-century poetry remains to be done.’’ Eighteenth-Century Women Poets and Their Poetry brilliantly introduces issues, opportunities, and new directions, that open up vistas into a vital world of complex personalities, engaging social practices, and inspiring artistic achievements. Elizabeth Kraft University of Georgia THOMAS KEYMER and PETER SABOR. Pamela in the Market Place: Literary Controversy and Print Culture in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge , 2005. Pp. x ⫹ 295. $85. This new book by Messrs. Keymer and Sabor is a valuable companion to their The Pamela Controversy: Criticisms and Adaptations of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela , 1740–1750 (Pickering and Chatto, in six volumes, 2001), and it splendidly exemplifies what can be accomplished in the relatively new discipline of the history of the book. Although the authors refer to the Pamela controversy—and there was one—this study is concerned with something that turns out to be more neutral—the 123 Pamela phenomenon or sensation or fashion. Richardson’s correspondent Solomon Lowe shows an excellent grasp of the positive consequences for the book trade: ‘‘witness the Labours of the press in Piracies, in Criticisms, in Cavils, in Panegyrics, in Supplements, in Imitations, in Transformations, in Translations, &c, beyond anything I know of.’’ And that summary omits the plays, operas, pictures, and racehorses that were to come. The Beggar’s Opera had generated ballads and engraved fans; The Dunciad, as Pope was proud to note, had provoked extensive retaliation—but nothing had inspired such a varied volume of material. The first chapter examines the ways in which Richardson advanced the publicity of his own work. We find puffing by mouth (a sermon by Benjamin Slocock and comments from Pope); praise in a journal Richardson had printed, the Weekly Miscellany ; Aaron Hill’s letters, printed to provide the bulk of the introduction to the second edition; and Pamela-orientated verse. This material undoubtedly had an important role in provoking Shamela and could be seen as...
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