Henrietta

As an orphan under the care of her selfish aunt who pressures her to convert to Catholicism and enter a loveless marriage, Henrietta learns to live by her wits. Henrietta's story draws attention to the difficulty for women of earning a living in mid-eighteenthcentury England and offers readers strikingly insightful and modern reflections on human nature. Charlotte Lennox was a friend of both Samuel Richardson and Samuel Johnson and was generally admired by many of their contemporaries. A major influence on Jane Austen, Lennox is an innovator in the tradition of English women's fiction. Out of print since the late eighteenth century, Henrietta is now available in an edited and fully annotated modern edition.

"Scholarly editing engenders a sense of responsibility in the editor towards the work and its author, a desire to present the author's work in a full and helpful manner so that other readers may find her work as satisfying as one has oneself. Ruth Perry and Susan Carlile clearly take that responsibility to heart." -- Susan Kubica Howard, ECF, "The latest entry in the series is a welcome addition." -- Kritikon Litterarum

Charlotte Lennox (1730-1804) was an English novelist, poet, and playwright. Ruth Perry, professor of literature at MIT, has written widely on women in eighteenth-century England. Her most recent book is Novel Relations: The Transformation of Kinship in English Literature and Culture, 1748-1818. Susan Carlile, associate professor of English at California State University, Long Beach, has published articles in numerous journals and is writing a critical biography of Charlotte Lennox.