The Father and Daughter and Dangers of Coquetry (review)

Shelley King and John B. Pierce's excellent Broadview edition of Amelia Opie's The Father and Daughter (1801) and Dangers of Coquetry (1790) fills an important gap in the scholarship of Amelia Opie and the literature of the nineteenth century. The Father and Daughter was one of the most popular novels of the early nineteenth century: it appeared in nine editions and was subsequently translated into French, German, and Spanish and was adapted for the stage several times in several languages, thereby catapulting its author into popularity (King and Pierce 11). Despite this popularity, recent scholarship and teaching have tended to focus on Opie's poetry and her novel Adeline Mowbray, which has been produced in four editions since 1974, including King and Pierce's 1999 Oxford edition. The Father and Daughter appeared in a Garland reprint edition in 1994, but publication of these two novels together in a Broadview edition provides readers with the opportunity to examine in depth the "cultural phenomenon" (11) that established Opie as a serious writer.

Like other recent Broadview editors, King and Pierce aim to situate the novels within their broader cultural and historical contexts. The comprehensive introduction discusses issues of interest to scholars of this period, such as the literature of sensibility, female chastity and sexuality, and madness, which are further illuminated by well-chosen and relevant documents appended to the volume. As the introduction notes, "growing interest in the literature of sensibility calls for renewed examination of work such as The Father and Daughter, works which captured and represented for their age the culture of sensibility" (51). The introduction teases out of the novel various strands typical of the culture of sensibility with which it engages. Subtitled "A Moral Tale," The Father and Daughter, like many other novels of sensibility, is ostensibly didactic; however, as King and Pierce note, although "one might expect clarity and certainty in the condemnation of immoral behaviour and the commendation of correct moral action to emerge … The Father and Daughter does not offer a simplified moral lesson" (16). Opie was clearly in conversation with contemporary writers, both men and women, who debated female chastity and the place of the "fallen woman" in society and her novel "tends to … investigate and critique both radical and conservative claims with equal intensity" (20). This is a topic Opie also treats in her first novel, Dangers of Coquetry (1790), which, the editors point out, was not published under her own name and which appeared in only two editions, making this edition particularly valuable. As in her later novel, Opie's engagement with the debate over female chastity is complicated: in some ways, the editors note, "the novel runs counter to the traditional critique of the coquette in the late eighteenth century" (44). Ultimately, the novel "epitomizes the radical changes in attitudes towards women's character in the latter part of the eighteenth century" (47).

King and Pierce further contextualize The Father and Daughter within the literature of sensibility in their discussion of the poetry included with the first edition. They also illustrate that in her poetry, as in her novels, Opie skilfully represents sentimentally moving heroines but that "one of the most interesting aspects of Opie's works for modern readers is the frankness with which she articulates female desire" (35). Their discussion also draws attention to the critical question of whether or not "the phenomenon of Opie's success emerged as much from her skill in writing poetry" (35); by including only a few selections of the poetry, the editors firmly emphasize the importance of the novel itself.

In addition to the important work of contextualizing Opie's novels in terms of literary history and discourses of gender that circulated in the period, King and Pierce's edition also historically situates the novel through a discussion of the novel's representation of madness. As the editors note, madness was a topic of interest both to Opie personally, because of an experience she had...