Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- A note on citations
- Introduction: “building on public approbation”
- 1 Frances Sheridan, John Home, and public virtue
- 2 The politicized pastoral of Frances Brooke
- 3 Sarah Scott, historian, in the republic of letters
- 4 The (female) literary careers of Sarah Fielding and Charlotte Lennox
- 5 Harmless mediocrity: Edward Kimber and the Minifie sisters
- 6 From propensity to profession in the early career of Frances Burney
- 7 Women writers and “the Great Forgetting”
- Coda
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Introduction: “building on public approbation”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- A note on citations
- Introduction: “building on public approbation”
- 1 Frances Sheridan, John Home, and public virtue
- 2 The politicized pastoral of Frances Brooke
- 3 Sarah Scott, historian, in the republic of letters
- 4 The (female) literary careers of Sarah Fielding and Charlotte Lennox
- 5 Harmless mediocrity: Edward Kimber and the Minifie sisters
- 6 From propensity to profession in the early career of Frances Burney
- 7 Women writers and “the Great Forgetting”
- Coda
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
I am much more hurt on your account than my own at your losing by this book; I hope it may yet sell: but if not, I have no judgment or St. Forlaix will make you amends; if I tho't it woud not I should be very unhappy.
I am much obligd to your delicacy in not telling me this sooner, but you need never make any ceremony with me; for I am one who can hear truth tho' it makes against me.
In any future publication I will take care you shall not lose; I will share the profit or loss of the history; & if, in any other, you disapprove that mode, we will not fix the price till what I write has been six months publish'd. I have thots of writing for the theatre, after the hist. is finishd; but it is difficult to get things done: if I succeed that way, I shall give up all others, as I like it best; in that case you know the price is always fix'd.
(Frances Brooke to James Dodsley, 17??)BEYOND FEMINIST LITERARY HISTORY?
Eschewing ceremony, able to hear the truth, negotiating future terms, liking the playwright's chances for success best – the writer of this 1769 letter to James Dodsley is clearly a competent literary professional, an economic agent confidently offering authorial expertise and flexibility as the basis for a durable and productive collaboration with this prominent bookseller.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005