About this ebook
Despite her family's diligence in destroying her papers, almost 500 of Smith's letters survived in 22 libraries, archives, and private collections. The present edition makes available most of these never-before-published letters to publishers, patrons, solicitors, relatives, and friends. As this volume was going to press, the Petworth House archives turned up 56 additional lost letters not seen in at least 100 years. Most are from Smith's early career, along with two letters to her troublesome husband, Benjamin. The archives also preserved 50 letters by Benjamin, the only ones by him known to have survived. Two letters from Benjamin to Charlotte are reprinted in full, and generous excerpts from the rest are included in footnotes, bringing a shadowy figure to life.
About the author
Charlotte Smith. English novelist, poet, and translator. Author of Emmeline, or the Orphan of the Castle(1788), Celestina(1792), Desmond(1792), The Old Manor House (1793), The Banished Man(1794), and The Young Philosopher (1798), novels; and of Sonnets(1784), and the poem Beach Head(1807). She also translated the French novel Manon Lescaut(1731) by Abbé Prévost, and accounts of several famous trials from Les Causes Célà ̈bres, which appeared (1786) as The Romance of Real Life.
Judith Phillips Stanton has taught courses in women's studies and feminist theory at Clemson University. She has published articles on Charlotte Smith and statistical studies of trends in 18th-century women's writing.
