Eliza Haywood - Fiction

Fiction

Haywood, Delarivier Manley and Aphra Behn were known as "The fair triumvirate of wit" and are considered the most prominent writers of amatory fiction. Eliza Haywood’s prolific fiction develops from titillating romance novels and amatory fiction during the early 1720s to works focused more on “women's rights and position” (Schofield, Haywood 63) in the later 1720s into the 1730s. In the middle novels of her career, women were locked up, tormented and beleaguered by domineering men. In the later novels of the 1740s and 1750s however, marriage was viewed as a positive situation between men and women.

Due to the economy of publishing in the 18th century, her novels often ran to multiple volumes. Authors were paid only once for a book and received no royalties; a second volume meant a second payment.

Haywood’s first novel, Love in Excess or The Fatal Enquiry (1719–1720) touches on themes of education and marriage. Termed an amatory bodice-ripper by some, this novel is also notable for its treatment of the fallen woman. D’Elmonte, the novel's male protagonist, reassures one woman that she should not condemn herself: “There are times, madam”, he says “in which the wisest have not power over their own actions.” The fallen woman is given an unusually positive portrait.

Idalia; or The Unfortunate Mistress (1723) is divided into three parts. In the first, Idalia is presented as a young motherless, spoiled, and wonderful Venetian aristocrat whose varied amorous adventures are to carry her over most of Italy. Already in Venice she is sought by countless suitors, among them the base Florez, whom her father forbids the house.

One suitor, who is Florez’s friend, Don Ferdinand, resigns his suit, but Idalia’s vanity is piqued at the loss of an even a single adorer, and more from perverseness than from love she continues to correspond with him. She meets him, and he eventually effects her ruin. His beloved friend, Henriquez conducts her to Padua, but becomes the victim of her charms; he quarrels with Ferdinand, and they eventually kill each other in a duel. In the second part, Henriquez’ brother, Myrtano, succeeds as Idalia’s principal adorer, and she reciprocates his love. She then receives a letter informing her about Myrtano’s engagement to another woman, so she leaves for Verona, hoping to enter a convent. On the road her guide takes her to a rural retreat with the intention of killing, but she escapes to Ancona from where she takes ship for Naples.

The sea captain pays her crude court, but just in time to save her from his embraces the ship is captured by corsairs commanded by a young married couple. Though the heroine is in peasant dress, she is treated with distinction by her captors. Her history moves them to tears and they in turn are in the midst of relating to Idalia the involved story of their courtship when the vessel is wrecked in a gale.

In the third part, we find Idalia borne ashore on a plank; succoured by cottagers she continues her journey towards Rome in a man’s clothes. On the way robbers beat her and leave her for dead but. She is found and taken home by a lady, Antonia, who falls in love with her. Idalia later discovers that Antonia’s husband is her dear Myrtano, but overcome by remorse, dies by the same knife. Their happiness is interrupted by the jealousy of his wife, who first tries to poison everyone and after appeals to the Pope to separate them. Idalia is taken to Rome first in a convent where she leads a miserable life, persecuted by all the young gallants of the city. Then one day she sees Florez, the first cause of her misfortunes. With thoughts of revenge, she sends him a billet, but Myrtano, keeps the appointment instead of Florez. Not recognising her lover, muffled in a cloak, Idalia stabs him, but upon recognizing him is overcome by remorse, and dies by the same knife.

Fantomina; or Love in a Maze (1724) is a short story about a woman who assumes the roles of a prostitute, a maid, a widow, and a Lady in order to repeatedly seduce a man named Beauplaisir. Schofield points out that, “Not only does she satisfy her own sexual inclinations, she smugly believes that ‘while he thinks to fool me, is himself the only beguiled Person’” (50). This novel asserts that women have some access to power in the social sphere, one of the recurring themes in Haywood’s work. It has been argued that it is indebted to the interpolated tale of the "Invisible Mistress" in Paul Scarron's Roman Comique.

The Adventures of Eovaii: A Pre-Adamitical History (1736) was also titled The Unfortunate Princess (1741). It is a satire of Prime Minister Robert Walpole, told through a sort of oriental fairy tale.

The Anti-Pamela; or Feign’d Innocence Detected (1741) is a satirical response to Samuel Richardson’s didactic novel Pamela, or, Virtue Rewarded (1740). It makes fun of the idea of bargaining one’s maidenhead for a place in society. Contemporary writer Henry Fielding also responded to Pamela with An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews (1741).

The Fortunate Foundlings (1744) is a picaresque novel in which two children of opposite sex experience the world differently, according to their gender.

The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (1751) is a sophisticated, multi-plot novel that has been deemed the first novel of female development in English. Betsy leaves her emotionally and financially abusive husband Munden and experiences independence for a time before she decides to marry again. Written a few years before her marriage conduct books were published, the novel contains advice on marriage in the form of quips from Lady Trusty. Her “patriarchal conduct-book advice to Betsy is often read literally as Haywood's new advice for her female audience. However, Haywood's audience consisted of both men and women, and Lady Trusty's bridal admonitions, the most conservative and patriarchal words of advice in the novel, are contradictory and impossible for any woman to execute completely” (Stuart).

Betsy Thoughtless represents an important change in the 18th century novel. It portrays a mistaken but intelligent and strong-willed woman who gives way to society’s pressures toward marriage. According to Backsheider, Betsy Thoughtless is a novel of marriage, rather than the more popular novel of courtship and thus foreshadows the type of domestic novel that would culminate in the 19th century such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Instead of concerning itself with attracting a partner well, Betsy Thoughtless is concerned with marrying well, and its heroine learns that giving way to the role of women in marriage can be fulfilling.

Haywood’s fiction also includes:

• The British Recluse (collected edition 1724)
• The Injur’d Husband
• Idalia; or The Unfortunate Mistress (1723)
• Lasselia; or The Self-Abandon’d
• The Rash Resove; or, The Untimely Discovery (1723)
• Secret Histories, Novels, and Poems (4 volumes, 1724)
• The Masqueraders; or Fatal Curiosity (1724-5)
• The Fatal Secret; or, Constancy in Distress (1724)
• The Surprise (1724)
• The Arragonian Queen: A Secret History (1724)
• The City Jilt; or, The Alderman Turn’d Beau (1726)
• The Force of Nature; or, The Lucky Disappointment (1724)
• Memoirs of a Certain Island Adjacent to the Kingdom of Utopia (1725)
• Bath Intrigues: in four Letters to a Friend in London (1725)
• Memoirs of the Baron de Brosse (1724)
• The Secret History of the Present Intrigues of the Court of Carimania (1726)
• Letters from the Palace of Fame (1727)
• The Unequal Conflict (1725)
• The Fatal Fondness (1725)
• The Mercenary Lover; or, the Unfortunate Heiresses (1726)
• The Double Marriage; or, The Fatal Release (1726)
• The Distressed Orphan; or, Love in a Madhouse (1726)
• Cleomelia; or The Generous Mistress (1727)
• The Fruitless Enquiry (1727)
• The Life of Madam de Villesache (1727)
• Philadore and Placentia (1727)
• The Perplex’d Dutchess; or Treachery Rewarded (1728)
• The Padlock; or No Guard Without Virtue (1728)
• Irish Artifice; or, The History of Clarina (1728)
• Persecuted Virtue; or, The Cruel Lover (1728)
• The Agreeable Caledonian; or, Memoirs of Signiora di Morella (1728)
• The Fair Hebrew; or, A True, but Secret History of Two Jewish Ladies (1729)
• Life’s Progress through the Passions; or, The Adventures of Natura (1748)
• Dalinda; or The Double Marriage (1749)
• A Letter from H------ G--------, Esq., One of the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber of the Young Chevalier (1750).
• The History of Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy (1753)
• The Invisible Spy (1754)

The Most detailed and up-to-date bibliography available is Patrick Spedding, A Bibliography of Eliza Haywood. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2004.