Description
Book SynopsisWhen Adeline Mowbray puts her mother Editha’s radical theories into practice by eloping with, but not marrying, a notorious writer, the mother and daughter are estranged for many years, but finally reconciled. As its subtitle suggests, Adeline Mowbray, or The Mother and Daughter begins and ends with their story, but its complex plot encompasses almost every other human relationship. This engaging novel explores many issues important in the Romantic period, from women’s education to the ethics of slavery and colonialism.
This Broadview Edition uses the first edition of 1805 as its copy text, but also includes important variants from the 1810 and 1844 editions. The appendices include contemporary reviews and material expanding on the novel’s themes of women’s education, marriage, slavery, and the tension between feeling and reason.
Trade Review“Anne McWhir’s new edition of Amelia Opie’s Adeline Mowbray deftly positions the text in its larger cultural and global context. It also pays notable attention to the author’s revisions of the text over the course of the nineteenth century, thus leading us to consider the ways in which conventions associated with the Victorian novel evolve out of Romantic-era fiction.” — Roxanne Eberle, University of Georgia
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
Introduction
Amelia Alderson Opie: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
Adeline Mowbray, or The Mother and Daughter; A Tale
Textual Variants
Appendix A: Contemporary Reviews
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Critical Review (1805)
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Annual Review (1805)
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Literary Journal (1805)
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Monthly Review (1806)
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European Magazine (1805)
Appendix B: On Education
- From John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
- From Hannah More, Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education (1799)
Appendix C: On Duelling
- From William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness (1798)
Appendix D: On Marriage and Divorce
- From An Act for the Better Preventing of Clandestine Marriages (1753)
- From Anon., Letters on Love, Marriage, and Adultery (1789)
- From William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness (1798)
- From Mary Wollstonecraft, The Wrongs of Woman: or, Maria. A Fragment (1798)
Appendix E: On Godwin and Wollstonecraft
- From William Godwin, Memoirs of the Author of “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” (1798)
- From Robert Bisset, et al., The Historical, Biographical, Literary, and Scientific Magazine.… for … 1799
Appendix F: On Mothers and Daughters
- From Amelia Opie, Poems by Mrs. Opie (1802)
- From Lays for the Dead (1834)
Appendix G: On Slavery and Jamaica
- From the Mansfield Decision (22 June 1772)
- From J. Stewart, A View of the Past and Present State of the Island of Jamaica (1823)
Appendix H: On Religion
- From Joseph Gurney Bevan, A Refutation of Some of the More Modern Misrepresentations of the Society of Friends, Commonly Called Quakers (1800)
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