Revised Reading of Mary Hays’ Philosophical Novel Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796)

“…a welcome addition to Hays criticism….demonstrates the currency of Hays’ writing within Romantic-period cultures of selfhood and subjectivity, politics and society, literary modes and models.” – Prof. Jacqueline Labbe, University of Warwick

“…an important contribution, not only to literary history, but also to the domain of the history of ideas and feminism.” – Prof. Gunilla Florby, University of Gothenburg

“[The author] offers a fascinating insight into the informal intellectual and social networks of the revolutionary 1790s, and the new, provocative ideals of womanhood that arose from them.” – Prof. Janina Nordius, University of Gothenburg

Preface Professor Jacqueline Labbe
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations

Introduction
Chapter One: An Educationalist out of her Time
1.1 A Female Unitarian
1.2 Wollstonecraft and Hays

Chapter Two: A Philosophy of Memoirs
2.1 Multifarious Modes
2.2 A Spectrum of Philosophy
2.3 An Enlightenment Object of Study
2.4 A Jacobin Heroine
2.5 A Victim to Enthusiasm of Feeling
2.6 A Mysterious Inexplicable Being
2.7 Insanity and Reason
2.8 Withdrawing a Sacred and Mysterious Veil

Chapter Three: Dissenting Correspondences
3.1 A Perfect Union of Minds: John Eccles
3.2 With a Freedom of Candour: William Frend
3.3 Lions in the Den: William Godwin

Chapter Four: Parody and Proliferation
4.1 Wallowing in the Mire: Memoirs of Modern Philosophers
4.2 Lloyd’s Gertrude: Edmund Oliver
4.3 Emma in France

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index