The Histories of Some of the Penitents in the Magdalen House

by Hiatt; Megan

• ISBN13: 9781851968602
• ISBN10: 1851968601
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-12-01
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Chawton House Library (www.chawton.org) is an independent research library and study centre which focuses on women's writing in English from 1600 to 1830. It is accommodated in the Elizabethan manor house that once belonged to Jane Austen's brother, in the village of Chawton in Hampshire, England. The library's main aim is to promote and facilitate study in the field of early women's writing. Pickering & Chatto is proud to be participating in a major new joint venture to make available many of these rare texts in new scholarly editions. The series will include will include reset editions of rare and important novels by women authors, complete with extensive introductory matter and endnotes. The Histories of some of the Penitents in the Magdalen House is the first book to be published in this important project. First published anonymously in 1759 (imprint 1760), this remarkable novel was written to promote the cause of the Magdalen House, a charity which sought to rehabilitate prostitutes by fitting them for a life of virtuous industry. More than a mere fundraiser, however, the novel challenges long-standing prejudices against prostitutes by presenting them as victims of inadequate education, male libertinism and sexual double standards. As such it revises earlier literary and visual representations of the lusty whore, and looks forward to the feminist polemics of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Hays.