Jane Barker - Popular Novels

Popular Novels

Barker’s status as an entertaining novelist does not emerge until the publication of Love Intrigues; or, the History of the Amours of Bosvil and Galesia (1713). The novel develops themes of an adolescent girl’s coming of age to experience sexual awareness. Due to popular demand, it was reissued in 1719, 1735, and again in 1743, along with Exilius, in the two-volume The Entertaining Novels of Mrs. Jane Barker. It was suspected that while Barker may have proposed Love Intrigues to be its original title, the publisher Edmund Curll must have added the term "Amours," in order to better suit the general appetite of the commercial industry.

The publication of The Amours of Bosvil and Galesia marked the transition of Barker’s literary works from an aristocratic and court-centred literary culture to a democratic literary system. Like Barker’s previous literary work "A Collection of Poems Referring to the Times" (presented to the Prince of Wales), The Amours of Bosvil and Galesia was originally written to be presented to the members of aristocratic families. Dedicated to the countess of Exeter (who married John Cecil, 6th Earl of Exeter), the novel was not intended for print originally, as indicated by Barker’s apology to the Countess in the 1719 revision of the novel, in which she expresses that the “unauthorized” printing and publication of the novel in 1713 had emerged to be a distressing surprise.

Involving a female narrator, The Amours of Bosvil and Galesia dwells on a personal and female-oriented narrative. This coincides with Barker’s original intention of gaining the sympathy of her female patron, The Countess of Exeter. However, Barker’s subsequent novels reach for a wider readership, as evidenced in A Patch-Work Screen for the Ladies (1723): featuring a set of mix-gendered narrators–three men and two women—the novel establishes an open and communal atmosphere, which widens the possibilities of its readership. In addition, a variety of themes in the Patch-Work narrative (crimes, seduction, and betrayal) largely expands the market potential of Barker’s works as she sought to satisfy the appetite of the general audience in the ever expanding democratic literary system of her times.