INTRODUCTION: WOMEN WRITERS IN THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

During the first few years of the twenty-first century, scholarly interest in the life and works of Elizabeth Inchbald has risen to new heights. One of the most significant indicators of that interest came in 2003 with the publication of Ill Tell You What: The Life of Elizabeth Inchbald.1 In this impressive biography, Annibel Jenkins crafts Inchbalds persona as an independent-minded thinker a woman who turned to writing, not as an art, but as a means of supporting herself. Two years later, Broadview Press released a new edition of Inchbalds second novel, Nature and Art (1796), and in another two years, the same press published Inchbalds first novel, A Simple Story (1791).2 Both editions are carefully edited and offer substantial introductions along with accompanying contextual materials. The year 2007 also saw the publication of the three-volume edition of The Diaries of Elizabeth Inchbald by Pickering & Chatto.3 This edition collects all eleven known surviving Inchbald diaries, annotated with introductory material and explanatory notes. Two years later in 2009, Amy Garnai published Revolutionary Imaginings in the 1790s: Charlotte Smith, Mary Robinson, Elizabeth Inchbald, a book that devotes two chapters to Inchbalds life and work.4 And shortly thereafter, Pickering & Chatto released Inchbald, Hawthorne and the Romantic Moral Romance, a monograph that links Inchbalds work in transatlantic terms with that of the well-known American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne.5 Additionally, numerous articles have appeared in periodicals like the European Romantic Review and Studies in English Literature, and yet more articles have appeared as chapters in books.6 Since the year 2000, Inchbald and her works have figured prominently in no fewer than two dozen dissertation and thesis projects from a variety of universities across the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.7 Finally, Inchbalds life and work have received renewed attention in the theatre. The recently restored Theatre Royal of Bury St Edmunds (near Inchbalds home village of Stanningfield) produced Inchbalds plays Animal Magnetism and Wives As They Were, and Maids As They Are in 2008.8 The same theatre produced Inchbalds The Massacre a play that Inchbald herself never saw performed the following year.9 Also in 2009, the Bury theatre produced a
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new one-woman drama by actor and writer Katie Bonna (8 September) called The Celebrated Mrs Inchbald.10 Bonnas drama attempts to capture the spirit and personality of Inchbald as a means of reintroducing modern theatre patrons to the writer and her works. The show was staged a few miles away in Inchbalds home village of Stanningfield on 15 September, and Bonna has since performed her piece at least once in the United States.11 Inchbald herself probably would be horrified at some of the attention she has received recently. To have her diaries published to have her private memoranda distributed internationally would be mortifying were she still alive to see the publication. The Jenkins biography would be only slightly less embarrassing with, for example, the attention it gives to Inchbalds admiration for the likes of John Philip Kemble and Sir Charles Bunbury. On the other hand, Inchbald would be delighted to hear that her literary works have attained such notoriety. She surely would be pleased to see both her novels and several of her plays in print more than two centuries after they were written. The fame alone would be gratifying, but Inchbald probably would devise a means of taking financial advantage of her position. She is known for crediting necessity as the impetus for her writing efforts in the preface to A Simple Story, and like many an author, she surely would attempt to benefit in some direct way from the fame.12 She was, after all, a very shrewd manager of her own finances. Part of what makes Inchbalds life so interesting is that in spite of her work in the theatre and in spite of the aspersions cast upon women writers of her time, Inchbald retained a sterling reputation throughout her life that leaves her largely beyond reproach. Even present-day scholars are unable to find much fault with Inchbalds deportment. Some might criticize her handling of her relationship with William Godwin after his marriage to Mary Wollstonecraft in 1797. The two were good friends, and Godwin even provided editorial assistance with A Simple Story. After Godwins marriage, however, Inchbald essentially shunned him, and their relationship never fully recovered its former level of intimacy. Even as late as the year before her death, Inchbald had little patience for Godwin. Her diary entry for 7 February 1820 includes the note, Mr. Godwin sent up his card, at four; I refused to see him.13 Scholars also have criticized Inchbalds handling of the second half of A Simple Story, arguing that Matildas abject obedience to Lord Elmwood is degrading to women that Matilda represents a sort of cowardly retreat from the dynamic proto-feminist Miss Milner of the first half of the book.14 Despite objections such as these, however, Inchbalds reputation remains intact. She apparently never strayed in her personal life, and the reputation and notoriety of her works remains impressive. She was for many years referred to affectionately as the celebrated Mrs Inchbald.15 At this point, it seems appropriate to pause for a moment to consider what is encompassed by the term reputation. In managing her own, Inchbald had to deal

Introduction

with two distinct, yet intimately connected, aspects of the idea. First, she had to manage her personal reputation. As a woman and particularly as a woman who worked in the theatre she faced serious challenges to her sexual chastity. Had she been openly involved in any love affairs, the public would have known, and Inchbalds personal reputation would have suffered. As a result, she might have lost a number of friends and admirers. Instead, Inchbald managed to keep her personal reputation unsullied, and she thus retained the respect and approval of the public throughout her life and afterward. Second, Inchbald had to manage the professional persona that she projected as an actor and a writer. To retain her base of devotees, she needed to be perceived as a respectably skilled actor and as a knowledgeable and competent writer. As a woman, however, she was not formally educated and had to face serious objections to her fitness as a writer. For Inchbald, the key to surviving the scorching criticism of the public was to be especially receptive to public taste and to keep the audiences sensibilities in mind in her acting and during her composition and revision processes. When theatre audiences disliked something about Inchbalds acting such as her stutter she worked diligently to correct the problem.16 If they disliked something about one of her plays, she would revise the text to take into account the audiences desires. As shown in Chapter 2, for example, Inchbald made significant changes to the plot of Lovers Vows in relation to the German original because she had a strong and accurate sense of what British audiences would and would not tolerate on the stage.17 Inchbalds tasks were not easy. During her years on the stage, women who acted often acquired personal reputations little better than those of prostitutes. Becoming an actor entailed opening oneself willingly or not to a variety of sexual temptations, and to act was to present oneself as a public target for all manner of sexual importunity.18 One of the best known examples of a woman actors loss of personal reputation is the case of Mary Robinson. Having been introduced opposite David Garrick, she had a promising future in the theatre, but trouble began when the Prince of Wales saw her perform Perdita from William Shakespeares The Winters Tale on 3 December 1779. He became enamoured of her and proposed a love affair to the married Robinson that ended disastrously when he later lost interest and rescinded a promise to give her a large sum of money. By then, Robinson had given up her career and marriage, so she threatened to publish the love letters the prince had written her. The affair brought widespread public condemnation for Robinson, whose life was caricatured and pornographically fictionalized in the press.19 Because of the scandal, she became widely known as Perdita Robinson. Inchbald learned about the seamier aspects of theatre culture almost as soon as she tried to become an actor. As a teenager, she had the temerity to run away from home to the capital, no less to seek a job in the London theatre. An oft-

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repeated anecdote involving actor and theatre manager James Dodd illustrates the precarious nature of Inchbalds situation. Inchbald asked Dodd for assistance in finding work, but when he reportedly made improper sexual advances toward her, she dashed a basin of hot water in his face and fled.20 Theatre manager Thomas Harris apparently attempted a similar violation, and Inchbald is said to have pulled his hair before fleeing.21 The 18 October 1832 issue of the Morning Post reprints an extract from John Taylors Records of My Life that relates Harriss inappropriate behaviour toward Inchbald on an occasion when she consulted him at his house about the performance of her plays.22 Inchbald reportedly pulled the managers hair with such violence that she forced him to desist before she fled.23 She supposedly related the incident to her friends at the theatre with the stammering comment, Oh! if he had wo-wo-worn a wig I had been ru-ruined.24 Whether these anecdotes are true is immaterial. What really matters is what they reveal about Inchbalds personal reputation before the public eye. Being an actor brought special challenges to Inchbalds daily life, but often the simple fact that she was an unmarried woman brought trouble. Without a man to escort her through the streets, she sometimes found herself the object of unwanted attention. Her diary entry of 11 October 1781 notes that a strange man walked with her for a while as she made her way through the park to deliver a letter, and earlier the same year on 19 February, she notes that a man followed her.25 Inchbalds exact words in the 19 February diary entry are, a Gentleman followed me as once before. The entry does not clarify whether Inchbald meant that a man followed her as had happened many times before or whether the same man followed her a second time in what twenty-first-century readers might term a case of stalking. The 1788 diary records similar encounters. Inchbald mentions having many followers on a walk on 18 April.26 In this instance, she does not record whether the followers were male or female, but subsequent encounters clearly involved men. On 22 April 1788, Inchbald writes that a Gentleman, a stranger, followed me up stairs; on 24 May, she says, at dark walked in the park[;] a Gentleman followd me to the House &c; and on 26 August, she notes that a Gentlem[an] (a stranger) walkd Home with me.27 Some of these followers may have been perfectly innocent and may have been respectfully polite to Inchbald. She may have been gratified by some of the attention. At times, however, Inchbalds admirers definitely were troublesome. In an earlier diary entry from 29 January 1781, Inchbald records being hassled on her way home. In the entry, she writes, Men took hold of me as I came home _ was purely (i.e., uninjured).28 Undoubtedly, much of this attention came as a result of Inchbalds public visibility as an actor. Her frequent appearances on the stage certainly lent her image a kind of mystique not unlike that attached to current-day television and cinema stars. Moreover, Inchbald was a physically beautiful woman, so she received much attention simply on that basis.

Introduction

While acting was a dangerous enterprise for any woman, so was writing and publishing. To write and publish was to court fame and indulge in a species of hubris that many of Inchbalds contemporaries found distasteful in a woman. Shrewdly aware of the risks associated with the effort, Inchbald released her first successful play, A Mogul Tale, anonymously, choosing to perform her own minor role in the drama as if it had been written by someone else. As the discussion in Chapter 2 shows, however, her nervousness during rehearsals quickly revealed the truth about the plays provenance. When her second play, Ill Tell You What, was released, the public already knew the authors name, and Inchbald eventually would receive some negative commentary about her role as playwright. During the following year after Inchbald had written two more plays for London audiences one reviewer complained that Inchbald had received too much praise.29 The writer was concerned that the excessive praise might tend to raise Inchbalds fame dangerously close to the level of that of male playwrights like William Congreve and Richard Sheridan. In fact, the reviewer had the temerity to suggest that Inchbald refrain from seeking to rival male writers and be content with more modest successes.30 A few months later, Inchbald was the target of negative criticism for her fifth successful play, Such Things Are. At least one critic accused her of plagiarism, arguing that her most recent play was too good a drama to have been written by a woman.31 Fortunately, a sympathetic writer for the Morning Chronicle pointed out the absurdity of the claim and defended Inchbalds role as author. When Inchbald turned to novel writing, she faced the possibility of even more negative criticism. The novel flourished in Britain during the eighteenth century, with important exempla produced by the likes of Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Tobias Smollett, Laurence Sterne and a host of other writers.32 The success of male novelists such as these likely encouraged women to begin writing novels, and during the Romantic era, hundreds of women tried their hands at the genre.33 It was an easy form to master much easier than poetry or drama so womens meagre education provided less of an obstacle in the creation of a novel. The novel could be narrated as if it were a history as if it were a true tale being relayed by the woman writer. And women could compose novels in short spurts of creativity between various household chores. The epistolary novel especially lent itself to being produced during the fragmentary free time that a woman might have at her disposal. Unfortunately, while the novel form gained credibility in some social circles, its reputation declined in others. Conservative critics soon began questioning the morality of the novel, and they lamented that young readers might be enticed into inappropriate behaviour by their reading. A novel was, after all, a fiction that masqueraded as history, and impressionable readers in these critics views might mistakenly decide that a characters immoral behaviour was somehow excusable. For example, in The Rambler, No. 4 (1750), Samuel Johnson

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argued that novels should be realistic without glorifying negative behaviour in a way that would encourage readers to emulate such behaviour.34 In a similar vein, Vicessimus Knox, a well-known minister from the period, famously asserted in 1778, If it be true, that the present age is more corrupt than the preceding, the great multiplication of Novels has probably contributed to its degeneracy.35 Such criticism was so widespread that authors began attaching self-deprecating prefaces to their novels claiming that their books were not, in fact, novels or that their novels were superior to all the other novels because of their foundation in truth. In The Popular Novel in England, J. M. S. Tompkins points out a 1796 book by an author named Charlotte Palmer who equivocally titled her fiction, It Is and It Is Not, a Novel.36 Other writers simply decided to publish anonymously or to offer their works to the public under male pseudonyms. Even during the Victorian Era, women writers continued to hide their identities as exemplified in the cases of the Bront sisters and George Eliot. Inchbald was well aware of her contemporaries criticisms of the novel, and she knew that her professional reputation might suffer if she were to be classified as a common novelist when A Simple Story was published in 1791. Her solution, like that of so many other writers of the time, was to attach a self-deprecating preface in which she claims that a need for money has driven her to write.37 While there may be some truth to Inchbalds claim, the preface is largely disingenuous. The social commentary in both of Inchbalds novels suggests sophisticated artistry rather than servile genuflection to public taste. Even so, what the preface to A Simple Story indicates is Inchbalds awareness of audience and her conscious attempt to manipulate the responses of her readers in her favour. At no point does she actually call the book a novel in the preface. It is, instead, a book, a story, a collection of volumes.38 Privately, she mentions my novel repeatedly in her 1780 diary, presumably referring to an early version of A Simple Story, and when she worked on Nature and Art, she also referred to it privately as a novel.39 Inchbalds defensiveness about the novel form was well founded. Indeed, as the Colman incident of 18078 shows, she needed to be defensive, not just about writing novels, but about writing in general. During this time, Inchbald was working steadily on the 125 prefaces to The British Theatre series. The project seemed to be going well until one day in December of 1807 when she heard an unsettling report from her publisher that the younger George Colman had been angered by some of her comments on his and his fathers work. She had written prefaces to several of Colmans plays and to two of his fathers plays. Her diary entry for 20 December notes that one of the publishing partners, Mr Rees, visited to let her know about a forthcoming Preface by Colman [] against me.40 Unsure of how she had offended Colman, she notes reading through her remarks about his work the next month in an effort to prepare a defence.41 It was not until 8 March that she received Colmans attack on her writing. The letter mocks

Introduction

Inchbalds education, uses her role as a literary critic to question her femininity and accuses her of being ungrateful and ill-read.42 Dripping with sarcasm and condescension, Colmans comments are deeply insulting. Interestingly, Inchbalds diary entry for that day records that she was far from displeased with Colmans criticisms probably because she immediately saw that defending herself would be a simple matter.43 In fact, she started work on her defence the very next day and continued to draft it until 13 March, when she notes, finished my Reply in the Rough to Mr. Colman.44 Inchbald continued to revise her defence for several weeks, and her publishers printed the letter in June. The discussion in Chapter 4 will examine Inchbalds response in detail to show how she masterfully appropriated Colmans language in a way that completely deflated his insults.

Assessing Inchbalds Reputation

The present volume constitutes an attempt to assess Inchbalds reputation, both during her lifetime and afterward. The primary sources of material for this assessment include Inchbalds diaries and biographies, her drama, her novels, the criticism she wrote for The British Theatre, and newspaper and magazine accounts of her life and work over the past two centuries and more. Each chapter focuses on a different phase of Inchbalds career to examine public responses to her work as well as her own responses to public criticism. The chapters address, in turn, Inchbalds acting, playwriting, novel writing and criticism production. As the evidence suggests, Inchbald was acutely aware of the publics reaction to her acting and to her publishing ventures. Indeed, she was so conscious of these reactions that she often made changes to her work to improve its reception by the British public. Interestingly enough, her reputation both personal and professional spread beyond the borders of the United Kingdom so that she became, even in her own lifetime, a truly international figure. Her work was recognized in newspaper articles and editions of her writings all over the British Isles, but her reputation reached much farther. In continental Europe, Inchbalds name was known in a number of countries, and selected works were translated into French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish and Russian. Readers in the Americas followed Inchbalds literary efforts in the United States and Canada. In Asia, readers in India learned about Inchbald from local newspapers, and in Africa, the public had the chance to see at least one performance of an Inchbald play in the 1830s in South Africa. Finally, Inchbald received attention in Australia. The range of countries in which Inchbalds name was known is truly impressive, and since her death, the number has increased to include the likes of China, Japan, Estonia, Singapore and Malaysia. It is no surprise given the subject matter of the book that even the Vatican has a copy of A Simple Story in the twenty-first century.

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A few caveats about this book are in order. Its original intent was to offer readers a complete picture of Inchbalds reputation and to discuss how that reputation has been sustained by two centuries of literary criticism. However, Inchbalds work has been discussed and reprinted to such a great extent that a truly complete picture is impossible in this slim volume. As a result, this book places greater emphasis on reviews and editions of Inchbalds work that reflect popular taste rather than academic taste. Granted, popular and academic tastes are intertwined to a great measure, and academic work on Inchbald, such as dissertations, is mentioned in the text. Even so, in the interests of conserving space, this book is necessarily incomplete and does not engage in significant discussions of important academic texts like Amy Garnais recent book Revolutionary Imaginings in the 1790s or Bonnie Nelson and Catherine Burroughss Teaching British Women Playwrights of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century both of which devote significant attention to Inchbald and her work. The omission of such works as these and many others should not be interpreted as a denial of their value but rather as a concession to the necessity of leaving enough space for the discussion of reviews and editions that are chronologically closer to Inchbalds time. Additionally, readers will note that Chapter 2 is significantly longer than the other chapters. The difference is due to the unexpected richness of information about the productions and publications of the plays, which simply required more discussion and resulted in the consequent reduction in the lengths of the other chapters. Chapter 1, Inchbalds Life and Reputation, examines Inchbalds acting reputation and afterlife with special attention given to her diaries and the way she constructed her conservative persona as Mrs Inchbald. As this chapter shows, Inchbald worked diligently to craft a public reputation as an actor while protecting her personal reputation as a woman. She acted in many cities throughout England and Scotland and even accepted a short stint in Ireland with Richard Dalys company. Her greatest triumph as an actor was to be hired at the Covent Garden Theatre in London in 1780. She worked there for nearly a decade, spending her summers acting at the Haymarket Theatre and even appearing on stage a few times at Drury Lane. Even had she never written her own literary works, Inchbald still would be a significant figure in the history of eighteenthcentury British drama because of her acting experience. Inchbald was not content with being only an actor and decided early in her career to at least attempt to write her own drama. Chapter 2, Producing Drama for the Masses, catalogues her successes and failures in this area. Perhaps not surprisingly, her first few efforts were ineffectual. Her diary of 1780 mentions several instances in which she attempted to push her way into the world of playwriting. On 6 March 1780, she records sending a farce to theatre manager George Colman (the elder); he rejected her submission.45 At the end of the year, on 24 December, she notes beginning a new farce about polygamy that she sent to man-

Introduction

ager Thomas Harris on 13 February of the next year.46 Harris apparently was not impressed, but Inchbald refused to relinquish her efforts. In March, she sent Colman yet another play, apparently titled The Ancient Law but was rewarded with yet another rejection.47 In her 1781 diary, Inchbald records extended time thinking about and revising a play during a summer visit to her mother in her home village of Stanningfield. She records thinking of a Plot on 9 June while alone on a walk, and two days later, she notes beginning work on her comedy.48 Back in London at the end of the year, she began work on A Peep into a Planet, a farce that biographer James Boaden suggests may have been an early version of Inchbalds first successful play, A Mogul Tale.49 Indeed, A Mogul Tale inaugurated Inchbalds playwriting career when George Colman accepted it in 1784 for performance at Covent Garden. Encouraged by the plays success, Inchbald embarked on a writing agenda that rewarded her with a string of other successes and only a handful of failures. Chapter 2 will examine the histories of the plays performances and publications in Britain, America, continental Europe and beyond. It also will focus on public responses to Inchbalds plays for the past two centuries. As this chapter will show, Inchbald once again remained ever mindful of her reputation, intentionally cultivating a conservative stance that audiences would appreciate and revising her work to meet Britons approval. The third chapter, Novels that Masquerade as Simple Stories, traces these same ideas in Inchbalds two novels, A Simple Story (1791) and Nature and Art (1796). Like the plays, the novels cater to the sensibilities of the contemporary British audience, but they also are deceptively simple in terms of character development and structure. The very title of A Simple Story calls attention to its simple qualities. Any reader familiar with other eighteenth-century novels will open Inchbalds books expecting a certain density of character and plot development. However, Inchbalds fictions surprise with their apparent simplicity. The chapters are short, the characters are not extensively developed and the plots are largely free of traditional digression and extended descriptions. For this reason, Inchbalds two novels stand significantly apart from those of her contemporaries. The chapter traces the publication history and reception of both books to show how they were especially instrumental in ensuring Inchbalds international reputation. Chapter 4, Literary Criticism and the Stage, continues the exploration of Inchbalds international reputation with a close examination of her literary criticism, particularly of her work on The British Theatre series. Inchbald was among the first to provide substantial criticism of a large number of plays including many of William Shakespeares in the early years of the nineteenth century. In fact, The British Theatre may have done more toward ensuring Inchbalds continued notoriety than any other of her works. The series became a standard in personal and circulating libraries across the United Kingdom and the United States. Catalogues from publishing companies, libraries and auction

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houses routinely list Inchbalds series through the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century. This chapter examines many such sources to show how Inchbald promoted the stage while claiming a place for herself among the revered critics of British drama. In particular, the chapter will analyze the aforementioned Colman controversy as evidence of Inchbalds masterful ability to manipulate the English language and specifically the objections of one of her most influential critics to her own benefit. Once again, Inchbald found herself defending her work by ironically casting herself as a poor, befuddled, uneducated woman whose limited intellect could not hope to come close to competing with those of her male contemporaries. The sarcasm of her response to Colmans criticism is blistering, and she thereby claims equality with his intellectual accomplishments. Despite this controversy indeed, perhaps in part because of this controversy The British Theatre became an enduring success. Finally, the brief conclusion examines the global legacy of Inchbalds dramatic and literary efforts to show that women actors and writers and Inchbald in particular could, in fact, exert some influence to craft their own reputations, both in the personal and the public arenas. Although women who wanted to write faced continued criticism of their temerity to foist themselves on the public, Inchbalds experience shows that women could, in fact, manipulate their own public images to some extent. Elizabeth Inchbalds case reiterates the claims advanced by many recent scholarly works that women of the Romantic era in Britain wielded considerable influence on the contemporary literary landscape.