The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza HaywoodWhicher, George Frisbie
General
The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood
Whicher, George Frisbie
Haywood, Eliza Fowler, 1693?-1756
There would seem to be little dangerous stuff in this performance even
five years after the insurrection of 1745, but if as the "Monthly
Review" ill-naturedly hints, Eliza Haywood really suffered for her
supposed connection with it, the lesson was at any rate effectual, for
the small references to the P---- occasionally noticeable in her
previous works suddenly ceased, and thereafter the novelist scrupulously
refrained from mingling fiction and politics. Previously, however, she
had at least once attempted to write a political satire elaborately
disguised as a romance. In July, 1736, according to the list of books in
the "Gentleman's Magazine," numerous duodecimo volumes emanated from the
shop of S. Baker and were sold under the title of "Adventures of Eovaai,
Princess of Ijaveo. A Pre-Adamitical History. Interspersed with a great
Number of remarkable Occurrences, which happened, and may again happen,
to several Empires, Kingdoms, Republicks, and particular Great Men ...
Written originally in the Language of Nature, (of later Years but little
understood.) First translated into Chinese ... and now retranslated into
English, by the Son of a Mandarin, residing in London."[5]
After the introduction has given a fantastic account of the
Pre-Adamitical world, and explained with elaborate unconvincingness how
the manuscript of the book came into existence, the tale commences like
a moral allegory, but soon lapses into mere extravagant adventure.
Capable at all times of using a _deus ex machina_ as the readiest way of
solving a situation, Mrs. Haywood here makes immoderate use of magic
elements.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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