Mother Knows Best

"...but let me take this opportunity, my dear Georgiana, to intreat you to put a total stop to a practice that hurts my feelings because it so greatly injures you.  I mean till your affairs are completely settled not to spend any money (however tifling the sum) idly.  Your finely bound books pain me more than I can describe.  Even the most common books, the rarest print, or whatever may most claim your wishes to purchase, you should steadily deny yourself..."

-Lady Spencer
6 September 1805

Eugenie, or Men Suck

Before Pierre Beaumarchais wrote his most famous play, The Barber of Seville, centering around the famous character of Figaro and his antics, he had created a play of almost equal popularity with a female lead.  The play, Eugenie and centered on the popular 18th century theme of a moralistic woman battling against an immoral world.

Wales must have been considered the country of naive country girls in the Georgian age.  Georgiana's heroine from The Sylph, Julia, and Eugenie both share a commonality of being from Wales and getting mixed up with rakes.  In the play, Eugenie has secretly married the Earl of Claredon and is pregnant with his child.  She leaves Wales to visit him in London and is perplexed when he is a difficult man to get in contact with, despite her husband's knowledge of her visit.  What Eugenie doesn't know is that her wedding to the Earl was staged and that he is in the midst of planning his upcoming nuptials to the daughter of the Duke of Winchester (doesn't that sound like a grand family).  The result of this mess is webs of lies, duels, and risks of estrangement from fathers culminating in Eungenie's near death from the Earl's betrayal.

When the play first premiered it was a bit long-winded, creating a few yawns in the audience.  Baumarchais and the cast noted this and then quickly made alterations so the play wouldn't be as long which did the trick.  Instant success!  Although the play took place in England it took a while to adapt to English due to Baumarchais messing up many facts about British culture that certainly would set English audiences talking during the play.  It was Elizabeth Griffith who managed to create an adaption for the play in 1769, renaming it The School for Rakes.

If you would like to read Eugenie, a new translation has just hit the shelves of Amazon.  Talia Felix, whose amazingly illustrated version of Fanny Hill I enjoyed, put together this new edition of Eugenie.  If there aren't enough rakes or rakish antics in your life you might just have to check this play out!

Frontispiece Gothica

Gothic novels were the horror movies of the long eighteenth century.  They were craze comparable to that of Twilight series; there were many fans and just as many people turning their nose up at the genre.  Audiences loved the adrenaline rush of fear and forbidden romance, and to capture more bookshop browsers it was good to have a good frontispiece to pique the potential reader's curiosity.  What better way to get in the Halloween spirit than explore some gothic novel frontispieces:


Vathek by William Thomas Beckford

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Children of the Abbey by Regina Maria Roche

Tales of Terror by Matthew Gregory Lewis

The Castle Spectre by Matthew G Lewis

Caleb Williams by William Godwin

Happy Halloween!

BookMooch Needs to be Taught Some Etiquette

Some of you may have noticed I have had some trouble with the book swap site, Boochmooch in the last few weeks.  A representative from the site has finally got in contact with me and the result literally had me shaking in anger.

I recommend everyone staying as far away from the site as possible.  Bad business is bad business and news of bad business on the web can quickly go viral.  Details of my experience can be found here.

A Very Special Announcement

I am extremely excited to announce the Librifiles edition of The Sylph is now available to order. This is the same edition as the Girlebooks ebook now available to download for free, but in print form for those who enjoy a good old fashioned book. I had a wonderful experience working together with the fabulous Laura of Girlebooks to put this out and was overwhelmingly flattered when she suggested distributing a print version with a introduction by myself. You can immediately begin to order The Sylph on Createspace.com now and for those Amazon.com addicts like myself, the book will soon be available to purchase there as well.

For those who are interested, especially participants in The Sylph Group Read next month this is great opportunity to get your hands on a print copy of the book that also supports humble bloggers, and more importantly, independent publishers.

Don't forget to use discount code 95Y8NF33 at checkout with CreatesSpace to get 20% off!


A Note About the Cover
Thomas Gainsborough, Elizabeth Linley (later Sheridan), ca. 1775
The portrait of Elizabeth Linley was not only selected for the beauty of both the sitter and the painting but for Elizabeth's many similarities with the main character of The Sylph, Julia. In the many images Gainsborough painted of Elizabeth, she is portrayed with her curly locks loose and a natural glow. In this portrayal of the singer, she is made up with the high hair and makeup of the latest fashions and therefore, looks slightly out of her element, and almost uncomfortable. The process of this primping process is described in detail in the book from the perspective of a girl who had lived her life in the country, unused to the extreme fashions and unable to cope with them. Julia's similar discomforts with a rake husband, a malicious high society, and leaving a loving family match those of Elizabeth Linley Sheridan's, making her portrait an appropriate selection for the book's cover.

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

While perusing Amazon for a copy of Fanny Hill, I was overwhelmed by the many editions of this book. I am not sure why I should be so shocked, the brazen novel was published in 1749, allowing for many versions to be released over the centuries. But what is it about this book where we are still interesting in reading it here in the 21st century? Was it great literature? Nope, not really. It was smut, written by John Cleland in an attempt to escape debtor's prison.

Originally published as Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, the novel would come to be known by the name of its main character which sounds strangely enough like a naughty lady-bit. Fanny is an orphan teenager who moves to London and takes lodgings with a madam who wastes no time transforming the young girl into a prostitute. But instead of this being the same moralistic story as Hogarth's Harlot's Progress, Fanny enjoy her various sexual exploits which, like our modern pornos, are more plentiful than the plot line is complicated. Yes, Cleland was not out to open the eyes of the public to the plights of poor women; he was in the entertainment business.

John Cleland was an educated individual who worked for the Bombay company. It was in India that he allegedly began penning the manuscripts which would become, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. The tale was an erotic novel and Cleland probably wrote it only because he knew: sex sells, and he needed some cash. The book was published in two volumes and it wasn't until a year after its publication that word got around to the wrong ears about the intimate details it divulged. Censorship laws may have been repelled, but for whatever reason Cleland's book didn't fit into this category and he was put on trial for obscenity. He saved himself by laying no claim to the book, stating he just happened upon the manuscript and embellished it. That didn't stop it from being published under the title Fanny Hill with some edits to the most scandalous parts. Rumor has it, the book was contained even more scandalous scenes that are now lost to us. For the next couple of centuries the book would be sold on the black market and banned from just about everywhere. The book wasn't even published in the United States until the 1970s!

Now, the problem is quite opposite. There are so many editions of the book, I can't even decide which to choose! I'm torn between these two (below), since they're both from indie publishers. I'm leaning toward the second one but worried it's from too late an edition. Oh dilemmas.

Check out some of the covers from some of the many editions. I was surprised by the amount with 19th century paintings and there are a plethora of different and creative covers which I found quite interesting.