Periodicals and Non-fiction
While she was writing popular novels, Eliza Haywood was also working on periodicals, essays and manuals on social behaviour (conduct books). The Female Spectator (4 volumes, 1744–46), a monthly periodical, was written in answer to the contemporary journal The Spectator by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele. In The Female Spectator, Haywood wrote in four personas (Mira, Euphrosine, Widow of Quality and The Female Spectator) and took positions on public issues such as marriage, children, reading, education and conduct. It was the first periodical written for women by a woman and arguably one of Haywood’s most significant contributions to women's writing. Haywood followed a lead by contemporary John Dunton who issued the Ladies’ Mercury as a companion to his successful Athenian Mercury. Even though The Ladies' Mercury was a self-proclaimed women’s journal, it was produced by men (Spacks xii).
The Parrot (1746) apparently earned her questions from the government for political statements about Charles Edward Stuart.
Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots (1725) is termed a “hybrid" work by Schofield (103); being a work of non-fiction but making use of narrative techniques. Reflections on the Various Effects of Love (1726) is a didactic account of what can happen to a woman when she gives in to her passions. This piece demonstrates the sexual double standard that allow men to love freely without social consequence and women to be scandalized for doing the same.
The Wife and The Husband (1756) are conduct books for each partner in a marriage. The Wife was first published anonymously (by Mira, one of Haywood's personas from The Female Spectator); The Husband: in Answer to The Wife followed later the same year with Haywood’s name attached.
Haywood also worked on sensational pamphlets on the famous contemporary deaf-mute prophet, Duncan Campbell. These include A Spy Upon the Conjurer (1724) and The Dumb Projector: Being a Surprising Account of a Trip to Holland Made by Duncan Campbell (1725).
Read more about this topic: Eliza Haywood
Famous quotes containing the word periodicals:
“I sometimes have the sense that I live my life as a writer with my nose pressed against the wide, shiny plate glass window of the “mainstream” culture. The world seems full of straight, large-circulation, slick periodicals which wouldn’t think of reviewing my book and bookstores which will never order it.”
—Jan Clausen (b. 1943)