Full Description
Hannah Webster Foster based The Coquette on the true story of Elizabeth Whitman, an unmarried woman who died in childbirth in New England. Fictionalizing Whitman's experiences in her heroine, Eliza Wharton, Foster created a compelling narrative of seduction that was hugely successful with readers. The Boarding School, a less widely known work by Foster, is an experimental text, part epistolary novel and part conduct book. Together, the novels explore the realities of women's lives in early America.
The critical introduction and appendices to this edition, which explore female friendship and the education of women in the novels, frame Foster as more than a purveyor of the sentimental novel, and re-evaluate her placement in American literary history.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Hannah Webster Foster: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
The Coquette
The Boarding School
Appendix A: Elizabeth Whitman: The Model for Eliza Wharton
Whitman Death Notices
Notice of Elizabeth Whitman's Death, Salem Mercury (Massachusetts), 29 July 1788
From the Independent Chronicle (Boston), 11 September 1788
From the Massachusetts Centinel (Boston), 20 September 1788
From Elizabeth Whitman's Letters
To Joel Barlow (19 February 1779)
To Joel Barlow (17 October 1779)
To Ruth Barlow (25 November 1782)
Appendix B: Manuals on Letter-Writing and Letters of Advice on Marriage and Friendship
From The American Letter-Writer (1793)
From John Bennett, Letters to a Young Lady (1791)
From The American Spectator, or Matrimonial Preceptor (1797)
From Letters Written by the Late Right Honourable Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, To His Son, Philip Stanhope, Esq (1775)
Appendix C: The Education of Young Women
From Judith Sargent Murray, "On the Equality of the Sexes" (1790)
From Benjamin Rush, Thoughts upon Female Education (1787)
From Miss Ann Negus, "The Valedictory Oration." Delivered at the commencement of the Young Ladies'Academy of Philadelphia (1794)
Appendix D: The Letters of Eliza Southgate Bowne
To Her Father (13 February 1798)
To Her Sister Octavia (7 February 1800)
To Moses Porter (October 1800)
To Her Mother (9 September 1802)
Appendix E: Mirth and Gaiety in the Early Republic
"Logick and Dancing, Compared" (September 1791)
From "To the Fair Sex" (10 March 1798)
Rules for the Providence Assembly (1792)
From "A Collection of Contra Dances Containing theNewest Figures" (1792)
From John Griffiths, A Collection of the Newest Cotillions (1794)
Cotillions
Instances of Ill Manners
"Homespun" (July-December 1791)
Works Cited and Select Bibliography
