Regency Novels

Part of the Articles series.

Written by Rose.

Regency Novels, or What Women Read

“The good ended happily and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.” – Oscar Wilde

This essay will deal with a relatively narrow but rich area of literature, the English fiction novels of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, which had a principally female readership. These novels are by no means the only thing that women would have or could have read. Poetry, both lyric and narrative, was popular, as was non-fiction such as history, travel writing, plays and pamphlets on various topics of interest to women (or perceived as being of interest to them, to “improve” their mind) such as on education, suitable behaviour (patience, resignation, virtue etc.), religion. Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) was very influential during the 1790s and raised the issue of female education and status into the public mind. However, it sank into obscurity by the end of the century. It is worth pointing out that most women would not have read philosophy, science and the truly heavy literature of the classical period, at least not in the original. It is reported that in the mid 18th century (so admittedly earlier than the game) only one of the female intellectuals (i.e. bluestockings) in London knew Latin and none knew Greek. The quotations and references within the women’s novels do show a good knowledge of Shakespeare, Milton, Johnson and the Bible, as well as of contemporary poets.

However, the period between 1780 and 1830 was remarkable for the amount of novels written by and for women.

Introduction to the Novel

The novel was not considered a high form of literature. Indeed, until the late 19th century, only the ancient classics were truly considered literature. Many of the novels written during the late 18th century were relatively poorly written potboilers and are now mostly lost in obscurity. They were considered women’s reading matter and there was a good deal of criticism levelled at them, most particularly at the gothic genre. Despite the disapproval of the (male) critics, novels remained enormously popular and no doubt had a great influence on women’s thinking. (See Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey.) Nowadays, it is hard to believe that these novels with their rather two dimensional characters and contrived plots could hold that much influence, but one only has to compare them with the current worry over the influence of violent computer games and TV shows to understand it. Despite this disapproval and critical worry about the novels it would probably be wrong to imagine that young women were regularly banned from reading them and had to sneak them into the house from the circulating library, as Lydia Languish is forced to do in Sheridan’s The Rivals. Only the most tyrannical parents are likely to have banned novel reading. The novels were very, very popular.

The writing of the late 18th century belonged to the “School of Sensibility”. This was “a combination of delicate feeling, sentimentality, benevolence, and imagination” (Dabunto) and by then the “Neoclassical aesthetic based on reason was mostly replaced by the cult of feeling” (ibid.). What this means in terms of plot and characterisation is rather hard for our modern sensibilities to get our heads round.

The Characters

We are used to novels with “feisty” and independent heroines. This was hardly the case in the novels written in that period. The ideal heroine would be typically “pale and interesting”. All heroines were beautiful. Fanny Burney is reported to have originally made her heroine Cecilia plain but rich, but she changed her mind at the last minute, afraid nobody would read a novel with a plain heroine. Equally the heroes were all handsome.

The heroine was virtuous. This meant never initiating anything and responding to advances only passively, resisting only when something as bad as rape is threatened. Ellena in The Italian does not want to escape from prison with the hero because of the damage it would do:

“It was true that Vivaldi had discovered her prison, but, if it were possible that he could release her, she must consent to quit it with him; a step from which a mind so tremblingly jealous of propriety as hers, recoiled with alarm, though it would deliver her from captivity.”
Radcliffe, The Italian.

When Valencourt proposes a clandestine marriage to Emily in The Mysteries of Udolpho she almost faints. The heroine would faint and weep frequently. She would probably write poetry, play music, sing divinely and admire landscapes. This connection to nature, however, most particularly found in the gothic novels, should not be confused with the psychological use of landscape found in the later Victorian novels, such as by the Bronte sisters.

The hero is often found to be a rather disappointing figure to modern readers. Heroes are often as indecisive and prone to weeping as the heroine- in other words, just as affected by sensibility. In some ways they were equals. This is contrasted with the heroes of novels written by and for men (though there is nothing to suggest that women did not read these novels) who were more “traditionally” virile- forceful, sexualised: (anti-)heroes such as Mr. B (Pamela), Tom Jones (Tom Jones), Lovelace Clarissa).

Indeed, Pamela (1740-41) was the original novel to set the standards for characterisation, particularly regarding the virtue of the heroine. The trend Richardson started, his successors followed in droves, many of them much less successfully. Nevertheless there were some novels that were considered unsuitable for female readers. Lewis’ almost pornographic gothic novel The Monk would not have been on any debutante’s reading list.

If the hero and heroine sound too piously good to be bearable then there was often a different kind of interest to be found in the villains and/or anti-heroes and heroines. Many novels had a secondary female to be contrasted with the heroine. Where the heroine was virtuous, passive and softly spoken, the anti-heroine was far more independent, less concerned for her reputation and often wilder in appearance. Whereas the heroine would most likely have a happy ending in marriage with the hero (though not always- far better to die like Clarissa than to survive with a broken reputation), the anti-heroine would generally end up alone and miserable, dead or mad. A good example is Elinor Jodrell in Fanny Burney’s The Wanderer (1814), a passionate, intelligent, independently thinking woman, influenced by suggestions for the greater equality of women found in the French Revolution. However, just about the only way this expresses itself is in her passionate and often hysterical love for the (wimpy and ineffectual) hero. She proposes to him on several occasions and also attempts suicide. She is sympathetically treated and is in many respects a more interesting character than the heroine Juliet. A more familiar example is Mary Crawford (anti-heroine) and Fanny Price (heroine) in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park (1814).

To contrast with the hero, there were often villains or anti-heroes who threatened the heroine’s virtue or life. These men would be rough, virile in appearance, dangerous, commanding, forceful and often older- everything that the hero was not. The heroine would be terrified of him yet strangely drawn to him. Lovelace (Clarissa), Montoni (The Mysteries of Udolpho) are two of these characters.

Of course, feminist and Freudian critics have a field day with these characters. It has been suggested that the authors are providing in the hero and heroine suitable role models for the ladies of the late 18th/early 19th century, obsessed with propriety, chastity, virtue and reputation. Their passivity and sensibility could be reinforced by identification with the novel heroines. However, at the same time, this was being undercut by the anti-heroine and villain. There is a real undercurrent of sexuality running through the descriptions of the villain and the heroine’s response to him and the violence and hysteria of the anti-heroine can also be seen as an expression of sexuality. It is through these characters that the reader can really indulge in subconscious escapist fantasy, while still feeling safe in their identification with the heroine. The sensual, rebellious subtext can be seen in descriptions of landscape and behaviour in a subtle way:

“The wind had risen, and the lake was violently agitated: Julia [anti-heroine] turned her eyes from the abbey, to contemplate the surges of the lake, while Charlotte [heroine], who was at a little distance behind, leaning on Seymour, stopped to look at a cavity in the wall, in which a snail had made his nest.”
Smith, Julia.

Julia is in tune with the wild turbulence of the wind and waves. Charlotte on the other hand, is dependent on a man and observing the tiny details of domestic nature.

Of course, such modern, psychological interpretations are not unchallenged and no 19th century reader would consider the novels she were reading in this manner.

Plots

There were two principal types of novel. There was the parlour novel set in the country estates of England and London high society and the gothic novels, set throughout Europe and with a sensational, mystery plot.

The Parlour Novel

The parlour novels by writers such as Fanny Burney, Maria Edgeworth and Charlotte Smith are easier to describe, at least at a superficial level. They would be set in contemporary society and follow the progress of a young woman, usually ending in her marriage. Typical plots to keep the hero and heroine apart involved parental disapproval of either one of them, a legal obstruction, financial problems, difference in rank or a love triangle. There was a great deal of the “romance” (think Commedia dell’ Arte and Shakespearean comedy as opposed to its modern meaning) in these plots. Apparently lowly born heroines discovered they were heiresses, estranged families were improbably reunited, virtue triumphed over adversity…

It is very important to remember that the historical romances of authors such as Georgette Heyer, charming though they are, have very little indeed to do with the kind of literature of the times she was writing about. The 18th century novel was in at least three volumes, each about the length of a single Heyer novel. The number of plots and characters was much more extensive. Friends of the hero and heroine would have their own stories. Often a secondary character, such as an older maternal woman (e.g. in Belinda), would “tell their life story”, a narration that could last about half a volume. The author might bring in a subplot of social consciousness, prefiguring Dickens, such as the heroine’s interest in supporting the lower classes, which would lead into involved plots and subplots, as opposed to a single episode. Where a historical romance might work towards one longer episode that brings about a romantic crisis followed by resolution, the 18th century novel might have many such. Novels were supposed to have a moral of sorts, appropriate for a young woman. Fanny Burney’s father was unhappy about her very short, witty, frothy and irreverent debut novel Evelina (1778) and her successive novels Cecilia (1782) and Camilla (1796), though still satiric in places, were far more in keeping with the serious, moralistic tone required by the critics.

Although these novels typically ended with the heroine's marriage and charted her feelings for the hero, they were not very "romantic". Physical sensation was limited to descriptions of blushing and feeling faint or ardent, kisses were briefly described (if at all and generally only on the hand) and even the wording of a proposal could be left vague. The following extract should give a good impression:

Lord Orville attempts to detain Evelina by grabbing her hand. He drops to his knees. Evelina narrates...

""Oh, my Lord," exlaimed I, "rise, I beseech you, rise!—such a posture to me!—surely your Lordship is not so cruel as to mock me!"
"Mock you!" repeated he earnestly; "no, I revere you! I esteem and I admire you above all human beings! you are the friend to whom my soul is attached as to its better half! you are the most amiable, the most perfect of women! and you are dearer to me than language has the power of telling."
I attempt not to describe my sensations at that moment; I scarce breathed; I doubted if I existed,— the blood forsook my cheeks, and my feet refused to sustain me: Lord Orville, hastily rising, supported me to a chair, upon which I sunk, almost lifeless.
For a few minutes neither of us spoke; and then, seeing me recover, Lord Orville, though in terms hardly articulate, entreated my pardon for his abruptness. The moment my strength returned, I attempted to rise, but he would not permit me.
I cannot write the scene that followed, though every word is engraven on my heart: but his protestations, his expressions, were too flattering for repetition: nor would he, in spite of my repeated efforts to leave him, suffer me to escape;— in short, my dear Sir, I was not proof against his solicitations—and he drew from me the most sacred secret of my heart!"
Burney, Evelina.

Authors would often take time out from the plot to moralise to the reader, discourse upon a related topic of interest, or intersperse the prose with snippets of poetry. It was popular for novels to be written in epistolary format, i.e. letters between various people, usually the heroine and a close confidante. Sense and Sensibility was originally written as an epistolary novel called Elinor and Marianne and it is thought that Pride and Prejudice was as well. Surviving epistolary novels include Pamela and Evelina.

The style of writing was very formal and most novels were written in a much more flowery style than Jane Austen’s minimalist approach. Characters declaimed in high, dramatic language. The kind of pseudo-Regency cant that Georgette Heyer uses, is completely made up. Nobody is a “peagoose” or “henwitted” and so forth. The farcical situations of Heyer’s plots, reminiscent more of Feydeau than Austen, were also very rare, though not unheard of. Evelina contains several farcical slapstick situations, but is the exception to the rule. Humour in the novels tended to be dramatic irony or social satire more than comic jokes. Very dramatic and melodramatic passages did take place, sometimes even more fetched than in historical romances, which tend to sanitise and rely on humour for interest. Burney includes scenes of a monkey biting a man’s ear off in a private parlour (Evelina) and a public suicide in Vauxhall Gardens (Cecilia) among others. Heroines descend to the complete and utter bottom before their final ascent, as opposed to merely being temporarily incommoded. Cecilia, for instance, finds herself separated from the husband she has secretly married, penniless, homeless and mentally ill, before she is granted the obligatory happy ending. Seductions, attempted rapes and abductions were all the order of the day, throughout all of which the heroine would retain her purity of mind, spirit and body.

These novels were often named for their principal character, usually the heroine. Sometimes they were subtitled. For example, Cecilia or Memoirs of an Heiress, Elfrida or Paternal Ambition, Vancenza or The Dangers of Credulity. Other types of names were also found. See below for a list of novels.

The Gothic Novel

The gothic genre is more unfamiliar still. These novels are the precursor to the horror and mystery genres and the more melodramatic Victorian novel. Jane Eyre is in many respects a gothic novel wrapped up in Victorian sentiment. The gothic novels were the historical romances of the day. Often set several centuries in the past, they are notoriously historically inaccurate. Casual references to the odd battle or military or political leader of roughly the right time period and settings in draughty castles are the general nods to historical accuracy. Characters and morals, however, are firmly eighteenth century.

The first gothic novel was Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) but the queen of the genre was undoubtedly Ann Radcliffe. She was definitely the JK Rowling of her day and like Rowling was followed by a massive stream of mostly mediocre attempts to cash in on the popularity of the genre.

The majority of the novels were set in Europe; in the south of France, Germany, Italy and Spain and were written by authors who had little or no personal experience of these countries. Radcliffe, whose novels are filled with extensive and detailed descriptions of landscapes, famously never left Britain. She got her visions of Italy and the south of France from travel writing and paintings. (c.f. Catherine’s comparison of the landscape around Bath with the south of France, which she only knows through Radcliffe’s writing in Northanger Abbey.) Not all gothic novels were set abroad, however. Isabella Kelly’s The Abbey of St. Asaph (1795) for example takes place in Wales, not that it is described much differently from the Apennines.

The plots of the gothic novel were generally rather similar. A beautiful, sensitive and wealthy heroine meets the hero. They fall instantly in love and are probably close to getting married when tragedy strikes and they are separated and the heroine is left destitute/orphaned/penniless/powerless. She finds herself in the power of the evil, older villain who generally wants her money/estate/signature to a mysterious document/mysterious yet apparently worthless heirloom. He is generally not explicitly sexually interested in her. The majority of the novel is spent by the heroine trying to escape from the villain’s clutches, be reunited with the hero and finally understand what the villain is up to. The heroine will most likely be forced to stay in at least one draughty castle/abbey. This will have secret passageways, crypts, chapels, ruins, outbuildings in the forest and a supposedly dead relative locked up in a dungeon. The heroine may find temporary safety in a convent or in a rustic cot with “simple” country folk but this never lasts. The gothic novels invariably end happily for the hero and heroine, eventually.

One of the most noticeable features of the gothic novels is the use of the supernatural. For example, the heroine may think that she hears heavenly music in the night, or see ghosts. These will create a terrifying mystery for much of the novel but will eventually be explained away rationally. There are no actual ghosts, fairies, witches or any other supernatural entities in the gothic novels. Radcliffe’s gothic novels (at any rate) show the struggle between reason and sentiment. While heroines are always sentimental, the novels take the view that the heroines’ troubles were partly brought about by their inability to see things and act rationally. Sense wins over sensibility, one could say.

If non-gothic novels tend to have landscape descriptions and poetic interruptions, this is nothing to the gothic novels. Descriptions of the “sublime” (key word) landscape of Italy or France go on for pages often moving the heroine to write poetry which will also go on for pages.

List of Novels

The following are several of the more well known writers and their novels that women in 1811 might have read.

Fanny Burney

Evelina, or The History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World (1778)
Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress (1782)
Camilla, or A Picture of Youth (1795)

Maria Edgeworth

Elfrida, or Paternal Ambition (1787)
Castle Rackrent (1800)
Belinda (1801)
The Modern Griselda (1805)
Leonora (1806)
Ennui (1809)

Ann Radcliffe

The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne (1789)
A Sicilian Romance (1790)
The Romance of the Forest (1791)
The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
The Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents (1797)

Charlotte Smith

Emmeline, or the Orphan of the Castle (1788)
Ethelinde (1789)
Celestina (1791)
Desmond (1792)
The Old Manor House (1793)
Mrs. Montalbert (1795)
Marchmont (1796)
The Young Philosopher (1798)
(among others)

Eliza Parsons

The Errors of Education (1792)
Castle of Wolfenbach (1793)
Woman as She Should Be, or The Memoirs of Mrs. Menville (1793)
The Voluntary Exile (1795)
Mysterious Warnings (1796)
The Valley of St. Gothard (1799)
The Mysterious Visit (1802)
(among many others)

Elizabeth Inchbald

A Simple Story (1791)
Nature and Art (1796)

Novels published in 1810

Self-Control by Mary Brunton
The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter
The House of Osma and Almerida by Regina Maria Roche
The Refusal by Jane West

Novels published in 1811

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
The Passions by Charlotte Dancre
Stratagems Defeated by Mary Meeke
The Missionary- An Indian Tale by Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan)

Popular novels by male writers

Samuel Richardson:
Pamela
Clarissa
Sir Charles Grandison

Johnathon Swift:
Gulliver’s Travels

Henry Fielding:
Tom Jones
Amelia

Novels that had DEFINITELY NOT been published by 1811

Everything by Jane Austen except for Sense and Sensibility
Fanny Burney's The Wanderer
Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre
Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights
Middlemarch and everything else by George Elliot
David Copperfield and everything else by Charles Dickens
W. M. Thackeray's Vanity Fair
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
North and South and everything else by Elizabeth Gaskell
Walter Scott's Waverley novels

The above list of novels is pretty arbitrary. There were many more novels and many more prolific authors. I have a list; please PM if you want a greater selection or further details.

Further Reading

If you wish to branch out from Jane Austen and read some of her contemporaries and predecessors, then Fanny Burney, Ann Radcliffe and some of Maria Edgeworth’s novels can easily be found in major bookshops and libraries, in England at least. The others are harder to get hold of. I would recommend starting with Evelina- it’s short, very funny and easy to read, though the language might seem rather stilted at first. Then progress to Cecilia, which is much longer and more challenging, but well worth it- it is an excellent book, if only to spot its influence on Pride and Prejudice. The best gothic novel is definitely The Mysteries of Udolpho and they are all very similar, though reading one of Radcliffe’s imitators can be fun just to see how bad it is!

The list of novels and much of the information in this essay was found in “Jane Austen and Mary Shelley and their sisters,” ed. Laura Dabunto.

This essay can only serve as an introduction to a topic which I am increasingly aware is deep and complicated. I welcome any and all discussion on the subject, and any corrections or clarifications.