The Piozzi Letters: Correspondence of Hester Lynch Piozzi, 1784-1821 (Formerly Mrs. Thrale). Vol. 5. 1811-1816 by Edward A. Bloom , Lillian D. Bloom , O. M. Brack, Jr. , Hester Lynch Piozzi (review)

Abstract

Ros Ballaster(1992), but Warnerregardsthe highly formulaic 'amatoryfiction' as much more centrally connected to the evolution of taste for fiction than his predecessors,and makesa strongcase for seeing its attractionfor the readingpublic as a powerfulinfluenceon the canonical writers. Novelists of all stripeswrote what readerswanted to read, or they soon ceased to be novelists. I have particularpraise for Warner's crisp and precise definition of Haywood's formulas (pp. I II-I6), his willingnessto use circulating-libraryfigures to generate an estimate of the proportionof readerswho were women (p. 141),and his questioning of easy twentieth-centuryassumptionsabout gender differencesin readings by men and women. Warneris fair and courteous towards his numerous predecessors, but lays out differences and disagreements clearly (often in long footnotes).The picturethatemergesisof entertainmentderivedfromdiverseorigins (including Continental): for Warner, the novel is generated by the tastes of its readers,not by generic imperatives,psychological individualism,the new economics , or brilliantindividualoriginalityon the part of its authors.In myjudgement, he overstatesa bit in concluding that 'Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding' succeeded in an attempt 'to absorb and overwrite the novels of Behn, Manley, and Haywood' (p. 277). One wonders why the absorptionwas possible, and why the older pattern failed to survive and coexist with its more respectable successor. But I certainly agree with Warnerthat however sincere Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding were in theirdidacticism,what theywere sellingwasfundamentallyentertainmentpackaged for respectability. Warner'sstudyis ultimatelymore textualthan contextual (evidence is admittedly in short supplyprior to the I76os), but his broad sweep, his culturalbasis, and his concern to recapture the outlook of the original readers combine to make this a judicious and persuasive book. Donnalee Frega's Speaking in Hungerrepresents a different sort of cultural studies, and a vastly less historical one. It is basically a highly selective reading of Clarissa conducted through the lens of anorexia nervosa. The analysisis heavily grounded in twentieth-centurypsychology and the popular and serious medical literature of women's eating disorders and diet books. It is clearlywritten,relativelyuncoerciveinitsview of Richardson'sstoryand characters, and extremelynarrowin its angle of vision. Much remainsto be learntabout eating as discourse in the eighteenth century, and Richardson unquestionably employs it in several important ways in Clarissa,but (for this reader at least) Frega is too entangled in her own interests to give a fully persuasive analysis of her ostensible subject. PENNSYLVANIASTATE UNIVERSITY ROBERT D. HUME ThePiozziLetters. Correspondence ofHester Lynch Piozzi,1784-1821 formerly Mrs.Thrale). Vol. 5. 181 -18i6. Ed. by EDWARD A. BLOOMand LILLIAN D. BLOOM. Assoc. ed.: O. M. BRACK, JR, intro. by GAYW. BRACK.Cranbury, NJ: University of Delaware Press;London:AssociatedUniversityPresses. I999. 603 pp. ?55. 'I maytoo get out of Debt next July, and then I might be tempted (with a freed Income) to take a comfortable House here and end my Days - an old BathCat Snappish at the Card Table, sullen at the Conversation Parties-and passionate with the Maids at home -following them up and down Stairs with a Cambrick Handkerchief in hope of finding Dust on the Mahogany Bannisters' (p. 397). So wrote Hester Piozzi to her friend Lady Margaret Williams from Bath in August 1815, touching with her characteristicsly franknessupon most of the key items of the phase of her life covered by the letters in this fascinating and informative Ros Ballaster(1992), but Warnerregardsthe highly formulaic 'amatoryfiction' as much more centrally connected to the evolution of taste for fiction than his predecessors,and makesa strongcase for seeing its attractionfor the readingpublic as a powerfulinfluenceon the canonical writers. Novelists of all stripeswrote what readerswanted to read, or they soon ceased to be novelists. I have particularpraise for Warner's crisp and precise definition of Haywood's formulas (pp. I II-I6), his willingnessto use circulating-libraryfigures to generate an estimate of the proportionof readerswho were women (p. 141),and his questioning of easy twentieth-centuryassumptionsabout gender differencesin readings by men and women. Warneris fair and courteous towards his numerous predecessors, but lays out differences and disagreements clearly (often in long footnotes).The picturethatemergesisof entertainmentderivedfromdiverseorigins (including Continental): for Warner, the novel is generated by the tastes of its readers,not by generic imperatives,psychological individualism,the new economics , or brilliantindividualoriginalityon the part of its authors.In myjudgement, he overstatesa bit in concluding that...