Celestina (novel) - Publication and Reception

Publication and Reception

Celestina was published in four volumes in 1791 by Thomas Cadell, who had previously published Smith’s Elegiac Sonnets, Emmeline, and Ethelinde. Cadell had become her friend and mentor, but he was averse to the radical views expressed in her works and refused to publish her next two novels, Desmond (1792) and The Old Manor House (1793). Celestina eventually ran to four English editions and a French translation, Celestine, ou la Victime des Préjugés, appeared in 1795. The novel was not published again in English until the Broadview Press edition of 2004.

Celestina was generally well received by reviewers, who praised its landscape descriptions. The reviewer for the European Magazine wrote that "if to delight the imagination by correct and brilliant descriptions of picturesque scenery, and to awaken the finest sympathies of the heart by well-formed representations of soft distress, be a test of excellence in novel-writing, the pen of Mrs. Smith unquestionably deserves the warmest praise." The reviewer for The Critical Review praised her characterization and noted that some characters seemed to be drawn from real life.