Abstract
Abstract: This paper opens with a consideration of the ways women's virtue was judged by their innocence (real or feigned) of worldly vice. For a respectable female author, this creates a quandary: how to write convincingly about a female heroine's supposed sexual wickedness without appearing to possess knowledge of, or insight into, such things. Considering available modes of representing crime (the criminal broadside and execution sermon), the formal constraints and implications of various literary forms (the epistolary novel versus omniscient narration), and the restrictions the real-life narrative imposed, this paper argues that Hannah Webster Foster carefully navigated various literary modes and social conventions in crafting her narrative. The end result is a series of revisions and elisions that protect Foster's reputation, while also rendering the novel far more sympathetic to the heroine.
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