A Simple Story

443 Pages·2007·6.886 MB·English

by  Elizabeth Inchbald, Anna Lott

b r o a d v i e w p r e s s
In This electronic material is under A Simple Story
c copyright protection and is
h provided to a single recipient
b Elizabeth Inchbald
a for review purposes only.
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“This is an ideal teaching edition. The full and lucid introduction considers . L Anna Lott
both biographical and formal elements. Particularly welcome and valuable o
is the generous set of appendices; the first, providing extracts from tt
)
Inchbald’s own critical and dramatic writing, as well as from her pocket
diaries, gives us a rounded and sympathetic view of the impressive variety
of Inchbald’s achievements as a writer, while the contemporary reviews
contained in the second appendix give a good sense of the prevailing
understanding of the novel as genre.”
Aileen Douglas, Trinity College Dublin
“By situating ASimple Storyagainst theatrical texts, Lott evokes the A
complexities of Inchbald’s life–as woman, actor, novelist, playwright, and
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eventually critic–and thus challenges us to understand the work as an
i
‘attempt to merge two forms, the novel and the play.’Examples of conduct m
literature demonstrate that Inchbald was an astute reader of gender
p
construction, while accounts of divorce proceedings illustrate the reality l
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of social consequences facing women who balked at the double standard

for female behavior. Excerpts from period debates over the politics of S
authority remind us that the novel was completed as the French Revolution to
was beginning and that many of Inchbald’s friends were shortly to be r
y
labeled Jacobin. This edition of Inchbald’s most famous novel will
prompt revisions in many an eighteenth-century syllabus.”
Katherine Green, Western Kentucky University
After its publication in early 1791, ASimple Storywas widely read in England and
abroad, going into a second edition in March of the same year. The novel’s young
heroine, Miss Milner, scandalously declares herself in love with her guardian,
Dorriforth, a Catholic priest. Dorriforth returns her love and is released from his
vows. Though the pair go on to marry, the second half of the novel reveals the disas-
trous and far-reaching consequences of Miss Milner’s subsequent adulterous affair.
The critical introduction to this Broadview edition considers such issues as
A Simple Story Catholicism, theatricality, the theatre, and the masquerade, while the appendices pro-
vide a wide selection of cultural, biographical, and literary contexts for the novel.
Elizabeth Inchbald
ISBN-13: 978-1-55111-615-0 Anna Lott is Professor of English and
ISBN-10: 1-55111-615-4 Coordinator of Women’s Studies at the
University of North Alabama.
edited by
Anna Lott
Cover: “Mary Anderson as Galatea,” b
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1883. Photographerunknown. o
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www.broadviewpress.com
A SIMPLE STORY
This electronic material is under
copyright protection and is
provided to a single recipient
for review purposes only.
broadview editions
series editor: L.W. Conolly
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Elizabeth Inchbald, by T.S. Seed after an unknown artist. Reprinted by
permission of the National Portrait Gallery, London.
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A SIMPLE STORY
Elizabeth Inchbald
edited by Anna Lott
broadview editions
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©2007 Anna Lott
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other-
wise, or stored in a retrieval system, without prior written consent of the publisher—or
in the case of photocopying, a licence from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright
Licensing Agency), One Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, on m5e 1e5—is an infringe-
ment of the copyright law.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Inchbald, Mrs., 1753-1821.
A simple story / Elizabeth Inchbald ; edited by Anna Lott.
(Broadview editions)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-1-55111-615-0
ISBN-10: 1-55111-615-4
I. Lott, Anna, 1963- II. Title. III. Series.
PR3518.A73 2006 823’.6 C2006-905174-7
Broadview Editions
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Book design and composition by George Kirkpatrick
PRINTED IN CHINA
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This book is for
John David, who inspires me,
and is dedicated to the memory of
John N. Whitaker, M.D.
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Contents
Acknowledgements • 11
Introduction • 13
Elizabeth Inchbald: A Brief Chronology • 47
A Note on the Text • 51
A Simple Story • 53
Appendix A: Inchbald’s Other Writings • 343
1. Letter “To The Artist” (1807) • 343
2. From Inchbald’s Daily Pocket Diaries (1788) • 348
a. Facsimile of a typical week’s diary entries • 348
b. Transcription of two week’s diary entries • 348
3. From Selected Plays • 355
a. From Wives as They Were and Maids as They Are
(1797) • 355
b. From Every One Has His Fault (1793) • 358
4. Remarks in The British Theatre (1808) • 363
a. Hannah Cowley, The Belle’s Stratagem (1780) • 363
b. Robert Jephson, The Count of Narbonne
(1781) • 365
c. William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale
(1611) • 366
Appendix B: Eighteenth-Century Reception of A Simple
Story • 369
1. Reviews of A Simple Story • 369
a. Anna Laetitia Barbauld, The British Novelists
(1810) • 369
b. The Critical Review; or, Annals of Literature
(1791) • 370
c. The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle
(1791) • 374
d. Impartial Review (1791) • 375
e. Lady’s Magazine (1791) • 379
f. Mary Wollstonecraft, Analytical Review
(1791) • 381
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2. Exchange of Letters between William Godwin and
Elizabeth Inchbald on the Day of Mary Wollstonecraft’s
Death (10 September 1797) • 382
a. Godwin’s Letter to Inchbald • 382
b. Inchbald’s First Reply to Godwin • 382
c. Inchbald’s Second Reply to Godwin • 383
3. Maria Edgeworth, Letter to Elizabeth Inchbald (14 January
1810) • 384
Appendix C: Cultural Contexts • 388
1. Portrait of John Philip Kemble • 388
2. Gender and the French Revolution • 390
a. From Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights
of Woman (1792) • 390
b. From Mary Wollstonecraft, An Historical and Moral
View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution
(1794) • 397
c. From Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in
France (1790) • 398
d. From William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political
Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness
(1793) • 400
3. Literature on Education • 402
a. From Hannah More, Strictures On The Modern System
of Female Education (1799) • 402
b. From Catharine Sawbridge Macaulay Graham, Letters
on Education (1790) • 405
c. From Mary Wollstonecraft, Thoughts on the Education
of Daughters (1788) • 411
4. Masquerade • 413
a. From Eliza Haywood, The Female Spectator (1744-
46) • 413
b. “Historical Account of Masquerades,” Lady’s
Magazine (May 1775) • 416
c. “An Essay on Masquerades,” Lady’s Magazine
(December 1777) • 418
d. Sample Advertisements for Masquerades and
Costumes, The World (30 January 1788) • 419
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e. From Hannah Cowley, The Belle’s Stratagem
(1780) • 421
5. Female Transgression • 426
a. From William Godwin, Memoirs of the Author of a
Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1798) • 426
b. Elizabeth Inchbald, Letter to William Godwin (18
September 1805) • 427
c. From Trials for Adultery: Or, The History of Divorces
(1779) • 428
Select Bibliography • 437
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