Full Description
In their moral tales, writers such as Hannah More, Amelia Opie, and Maria Edgeworth embraced explicitly didactic aims, seeking to instill normative moral behavior in their readers while entertaining them with vivid, emotional storytelling. In More's 'Tawney Rachel,' for example, a servant girl suffers severe consequences for succumbing to superstition; in Opie's 'The Black Velvet Pelisse,' a young woman is rewarded for a charitable act with a desirable marriage; and in Edgeworth's 'The Dun,' a wealthy man's selfishness destroys a poor family before he finally sees the error of his ways.This edition offers a selection of five short fictions by More, Opie, and Edgeworth-the best-known writers of the moral tale-prefaced by a critical introduction to the genre and its place in the complex and fascinating debates surrounding the writing and reading of fiction in the Romantic period. The volume concludes with a variety of background materials that help situate the moral tale in its late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century literary contexts, including moral tales for children, theories of education, and contemporary reviews.
Contents
Introduction
The Moral Tale
Hannah More
Amelia Alderson Opie
Maria Edgeworth
Moral Tales: A Selection
Hannah More, 'Tawney Rachel,' Cheap Repository Tracts (1796-97)
Hannah More, 'The Servant Man Turned Soldier,' Cheap Repository Tracts (1796-97)
Amelia Opie, 'The Black Velvet Pelisse,' Simple Tales (1806)
Amelia Opie, 'The Soldier's Return,' Simple Tales (1806)
Maria Edgeworth, 'The Dun,' Tales of Fashionable Life (1809)
In Context
A. Contemporary Reviews
1. from anonymous, review of 'Cheap Repository Tracts,' The Evangelical Magazine (October 1795)
2. from anonymous, review of 'Cheap Repository Tracts,' Critical Review (October 1797)
3. from anonymous, review of 'Simple Tales,' Literary Journal (August 1806)
4. from anonymous, review of 'Simple Tales,' Edinburgh Review (July 1806)
5. from anonymous, review of 'Simple Tales,' The Critical Review (August 1806)
6. from anonymous, review of 'Tales of Fashionable Life,' The Critical Review (July 1809)
7. from anonymous, 'On Edgeworth's Tales of Fashionable Life,' The Critical Review, or Annals of Literature (October 1809)
B. Illustrations
1. Title page, 'Tawney Rachel,' from Hannah More, Cheap Repository Tracts (1796-97)
2. Title page, 'Servant Man Turned Soldier,' from Hannah More, Cheap Repository Tracts (1796-97)
3. Valentine Green after John Opie, 'A lady telling a gripping story to young women and children' (1785)
4. William Harvey, 'Ennui' [Frontispiece engraving], in Maria Edgeworth's Tales and Novels, Volume 6 (1832)
C. Tales for Children
1. Maria Edgeworth, 'Tarlton,' The Parent's Assistant (1796)
2. Amelia Opie, 'The Little Boy and His Lame Dog,' Tales of the Pemberton Family (1825)
D. Educating Readers
1. from Maria and Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Practical Education (1798)
2. from Hannah More, Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education with a View to the Principles and Conduct of Women of Rank and Fortune (1799; 1809)
