Description
Book SynopsisFair 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.
Trade 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, Winter 2009 *
