Editor's Note

Editor's Note In keeping with our tradition, the essays published in this volume are based on papers that were presented at the annual meetings of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and its affiliates. The essays selected for this volume present a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives and thus offer a glance at the state of scholarship in eighteenthcentury studies. The first cluster of essays deals with the question of spending. In the first essay, James E. Evans examines the depiction of gambling in comedies and periodicals in the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century in England. The article focuses on the shift that occurs after the Revolution of 1688 when gambling ceases to be seen as an acceptable recreation for gentlemen and ladies and is increasingly condemned as an immoral activity, a "wicked folly," and a threat to a woman's honor. This question of the dangers of gambling for women is developed in the second essay (by Beth Kowaleski Wallace) which examines a number of fashionable lady gamesters in the Restoration and the early eighteenth-century stage. Focusing on the female performance at the gambling table, the article explores the connections between the game of chance and the control of social behavior. The gaming woman emerges from this reading as a complex and potentially subversive figure. Catherine Keohane's essay examines the fear raised by women's participation in the consumer economy of eighteenth-century England. An analysis of didactic as well as fictional works reveals a growing concern about women's control of money. The author explores the relationship between charity and expenditure as well as the conflicting philosophies about spending available at the time and proposes a new "economic" argument regarding women's consumption. In the second section questions of national and international identities are explored. Brijraj Singh's contribution offers an examination of the international collaboration among Protestants in the early part of the eighteenth century. Recreating the history of the interaction between the pietist wing of the Lutheran Church in Germany, the Church of England in Britain, the American Puritan movement in New England and protestant missionaries in south India, the author offers an international perspective on the question of ecumenism and tolerance. Historical figures are examined in the context IX χ / Editor's Note of their religious ideas and well as their social work (in particular the establishment of orphanages and schools for the poor). Daniel J. Ennis offers a reflection on the role of poetic discourse in the formation of eighteenth-century American identity. Drawing on the discovery of a letter and a poem written by John Paul Jones and addressed to Phillis Wheatley the author explores the connections between the fugitive Scottish sailor and the former black slave and finds profound similarities in the fashioning of their respective identities as Americans. Both found similar opportunities in the writing of poetry and in the American Revolution. The third article (by Leanne Maunu) examines Frances Burney's Evelina in the context of the shaping of a national identity in Britain. By focusing on two colorful characters from the novel—a French woman, and a British sea captain— the author shows how Burney uses anti-French propaganda as an inspiration for her characters, expressing the contemporary fears and anxieties about the French nation as an "Other" threatening to contaminate the national character. A close textual analysis reveals both the violence of this depiction and its limits, suggesting Burney's own ambivalence. The third cluster of essays is devoted to France's literary tradition. Reginald McGinnis proposes an examination of the negative meanings and uses of the concept of originality in France. Focusing on the social critique of originality this article presents a reading of dramatic and fictional works which offer polemical perspectives on originality. In particular, the literary quarrel between the philosophes and their adversaries brings into focus the relationship between originality and imitation. The second essay, by John Iverson, deals with the emergence of a new cultural practice in France: the first literary centenary held in 1773 in celebration of Molière's death. This event is seen as a key moment in the formation of a national literature and of...