The Power of Sympathy and the Coquette

by Brown, William Wells; Foster, Hannah Webster

• ISBN13: 9780140434682
• ISBN10: 0140434682
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-11-01
• Publisher: Penguin Classics

Summary

Written in epistolary form and drawn from actual events, The Power of Sympathy (1789) and The Coquette (1797) were two of the earliest novels published in America. William Hill Brown's The Power of Sympathy reflects eighteenth-century America's preoccupation with the role of women as safekeepers of the country's morality. A novel about the dangers of succumbing to sexual temptations and the rewards of resistance, it was meant to promote women's moral rectitude, and the letters through which the story is told are filled with advice on the proper relationships between the sexes. Like The Power of Sympathy, Hannah Webster Foster's The Coquette is concerned with womanly virtue. Eliza Wharton is eager to enjoy a bit of freedom before settling down to domestic life and begins a flirtation with the handsome, rakish Sanford. Their letters trace their relationship from its romantic beginnings to the transgression that inevitably brings their exclusion from proper society. In her Introduction, Carla Mulford discusses the novels' importance in the development of American literature and as vivid reflections of the goal to establish a secure republic built on the virtue of its citizens.

Author Biography

William Wells Brown (1814–1884) was born a slave, escaped to the North and then to England, and became one of the most prominent abolitionists of his time. During his prolific literary career, Brown was a pioneer in several different genres, including travel writing, fiction, and drama.

Table of Contents

Editor's Note	v	(4)
Introduction	ix	(44)
Carla Mulford
Suggestions for Further Reading	liii	(6)
A Note on the Texts	lix
THE POWER OF SYMPATHY: OR, THE TRIUMPH OF NATURE, FOUNDED IN TRUTH.	1	(104)
THE COQUETTE; OR, THE HISTORY OF ELIZA WHARTON; A NOVEL; FOUNDED ON FACT.	105	(138)
Explanatory Notes	243	(28)
Appendix I: From Advice from a Lady of Quality to Her Children	271	(14)
Appendix II: Letter from Annis Boudinot Stockton to Julia Stockton Rush, on Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)	285