Monstrous Motherhood: Eighteenth-Century Culture and the Ideology of Domesticity

Acknowledgments

The gestation period of this book was long, arduous, and punctuated by interruption , change, and the unexpected—all of which seem fitting for a work on monstrous motherhood. Yet there were many midwives and many sources of support and inspiration during the research, writing, and editing of this book, for which I am most grateful. WestVirginiaUniversityandtheEberlyCollegeofArtsandSciencesfunded conference activities that allowed me to test and refine my ideas, as well as the sabbatical leaves that gave me the opportunity to shape, and ultimately complete , this work. My colleagues in the Department of English provided unstinting support, insightful answers to my queries, and perspective on scholarship and the profession; I am especially grateful to Dennis Allen, Michael Germana, Rosemary Hathaway, Kirk Hazen, Adam Komisaruk, John Lamb, Ethel Smith, and Lisa Weihman and to my former colleagues Tim Adams, Sophia Blaydes, Pat Conner, JohnErnest, DonaldHall, and Robert Markley. My students at West Virginia University continue to challenge and teach me, and working with Lisa Brewer, Mark Kohan, Crystal Lake, Jessika Thomas, and Lori Zerne has been a pleasure. The generosity of the eighteenth-century scholarly community is unparalleled ; a wiser, friendlier group of scholars cannot be found. I am indebted to my colleagues in the field, who gave their time, attention, and wisdom graciously and unreservedly. Katharine Kittredge has been my sounding board and reader since this book was barely a glimmer of an idea; my conversations with Linda ZionkowskiwerecrucialasIworkedthroughtheissuesofspectralmotherhood. Roxann Wheeler read an early prospectus, and her advice led me to rethink and reshape the trajectory of this book; my conversations with Audrey Bilger about gender, performance, and audience challenged me to ask and answer questions that otherwise would have been ignored. Laura Engel has spent hours with me over coffee, sharing her infectious enthusiasm for eighteenth-century studies Acknowledgments x ack now ledgments as she gave me feedback on chapters of this book. The regional and national communities of the American Society of Eighteenth Century Studies have energized me countless times; my annual dinners with Catherine Craft-Fairchild and the ongoing conversations with Jennie Batchelor, Cynthia Klekar, Devoney Looser, and so many others exemplify the generative, supportive, affirming values of scholarly community. AfterIbeganworkingonthisbook,IbecameinvolvedintheBurneySociety, whose members warmly welcomed me into their fold. Their expertise on all thingsBurney—andallthingseighteenthcentury—hasbeenaconstantsource of inspiration (and on more than one occasion, awe). I would like to thank Elaine Bander, who first welcomed me to the Burney Society and who has been a steadfast supporter of my work on Burney and Austen; Lorna Clark, whose work on Sarah Harriet Burney and Elizabeth Allen Burney has influenced my ideas about the politics of family narrative; Stewart Cooke and Alex Pitofsky, who have been endlessly patient as I have learned my role as editor of the Burney Journal; Margaret Doody, for sharing her encyclopedic knowledge and for telling me, during a period of doubt, that I had things to say and that I should say them; Juliet McMaster, for her knowledge of art, fencing, and literature written by children; Catherine Parisian, who opened up the world of book historytomeandmadeorganizingBurneyconferencesapleasure ;PeterSabor,for encouragingmetowriteandpursuemyideaswherevertheymighttakeme;and Paula Stepankowsky, whose vision of the Burney Society made me rethink my definitionsofacademicandnonacademicliterarycommunitiesandmyroleasa scholar and an advocate for the humanities. Parts of this book have appeared in print previously. The core of chapter 1 first appeared in print as “The Monstrous Mother: Reproductive Anxiety in Swift and Pope” in ELH: English Literary History 61 (1994). An early version of chapter 4 was published as “Monstrous Mothers, Monstrous Societies: Infanticide and the Rule of Law in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century England” in Eighteenth-Century Life21, no. 2 (1997); I thank Duke University Press, the copyright holder, for permission to reprint this text. And chapter 6 was initially published as “Stepmommy Dearest? The Burneys and the Construction of Stepmotherhood ” in Eighteenth-Century Women 5 (2008); my thanks to Linda Troost, the editor, for permission to reprint my article. My debt to Kristina Straub, who read the manuscript for the Johns Hopkins University Press, cannot be overstated. Her deep, sensitive reading of the manuscript and incisive comments added richness to the argument and sharpened the framing of the manuscript. I would like to thank Matt McAdam for shep- ack now ledgments xi herding my book through to publication, Joanne Allen for her careful copyediting , and Mary Lou Kenney and the staff at JHUP for their expertise. My friends give me hope...