Product Description

First published in the turbulent decade following the French Revolution, Memoirs of Emma Courtney is based on Mary Hays' own passionate struggle with romance and Enlightenment philosophy. A feminist and ardent disciple of Mary Wollstonecraft, Hays reveals the lamentable gap between `what women are' and `what woment ought to be'. The novel is one of the most articulate and detailed expressions of the yearnings and frustrations of a woman living in late eighteenth-century English society. It questions marital arrangements and courtship rituals by depicting a woman who actively pursues the man she loves. The novel explores the links between sexuality, desire, and economic and social freedom, suggesting the need for improvement in the laws of society which `have enslaved, enervated, and degraded woman'.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #324192 in Books
• Published on: 2000-12-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Sandra Sherman, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
"this wonderful formerly obscure novel now yields the intellectual excitement and scandalous frisson that it generated upon publication."

From the Publisher
The Broadview Editions series is an effort to represent the ever-changing canon of literature in English by bringing together texts long regarded as classics with valuable, lesser-known literature. Newly type-set and produced on high-quality paper in trade paperback format, the Broadview Editions series is a delight to handle as well as to read.

Each volume includes a full introduction, chronology, bibliography, and explanatory notes along with a variety of documents from the period, giving readers a rich sense of the world from which the work emerged.

About the Author
Eleanor Ty is Assistant Professor of English at Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario.

Customer Reviews

the perils of sensibility
Written in the form of letters from Emma, the story of her early life unfolds. She describes the loss of her mother, her adoption by relations and, as she grows older, her relationships with several men. In partucular with the man with whom she falls passionately in love but who does not reciprocate her feelings.

Emma pursues him with the shameless ardour of a stalker and with sheaves of letters that detail her love, as well as the problems society places in the way of women who wish to live full independent lives. Mary Hays was a friend of feminist Mary Wollstoncraft and many of Wollstoncraft's ideas are broached in the novel. The restrictions placed on womens' opportunities for education, self development and independence are outlined and given powerful examples from Emma's own unhappy life. It is also a warning for her readers not to depend on men for support and guidance and represents a warning about the dangers of 'Sensibilty'.

This is a really good edition of the novel. The editor, Marilyn Brooks has provided an excellent and helpful introduction, notes and scholarly appendices.
This is a really useful text for students of the Romantic era as it is an interesting text to compare to Jane Austen's novels as well as being a fascinating work in its own right. It reminded me of Bronte's Villette in many ways and like that works reads like a long and angry meditation on a prison break.