Fair Philosopher

Eliza Haywood and the Female Spectator

Donald J. Newman and Lynn Marie Wright (Eds.)

2006
252 pages
$84.00
ISBN 9781611482461
LC 2005030316
Bucknell Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture

Fair Philosopher, the first sustained scholarly study of The Female Spectator, brings together an impressive collection of established and upcoming Haywood scholars who challenge much of the received opinion about this groundbreaking journal. Several of the essays show that Haywood's periodical was far more political than is generally thought, that its connections to her career as a novelist are more intimate than has been recognized, and that The Spectator was a target as well as a model. This collection makes a convincing argument that Haywood's periodical deserves far more critical attention than it has received so far and suggests new lines of development for future Haywood scholarship.

Review
"If one group of essays in this new volume invigorates Haywood studies by addressing questions that matter to the larger arena of cultural, feminist, and literary studies, another set of essays, just as valuable and important, moves beyond the old narratives about Haywood, using new ideas about The Female Spectator to challenge old assumptions -- about her feminism, about her novels, about her relationship to other writers and to her culture." --Amy Wolf, Canisius College (Eighteenth-Century Life, 33.1, Winter 2009)

About the editors:

Donald J. Newman is an independent scholar in Texas with research interests in James Boswell and eighteenth-century journalism. Published in the Cambridge History of the English Short Story, his most recent essay, "Short Prose Narratives of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries," examines the development of the short story primarily in eighteenth-century British magazines. He has edited a collection of essays on Boswell, James Boswell: Psychological Interpretations as well as published numerous articles about him. He has also edited two collections on eighteenth-century periodicals: The Spectator: Emerging Discourses and Fair Philosopher: Eliza Haywood and The Female Spectator.

Lynn Marie Wright, PhD, is Associate Professor of English at Pasadena City College and co-director of the Teaching and Learning Center. Her scholarly interests are in composition pedagogy, learning communities, and eighteenth-century women writers, particularly Charlotte Smith.