Actress, playwright, and novelist, Elizabeth Griffith (1727-1793)
won fame in England with the publication in 1757 of the first two
volumes of Letters Between Henry and Frances, letters from her own
courtship with Richard Griffith whom she secretly married in 1751.
Her first novel, The Delicate Distress (1769), focuses on the
problems women encounter after marriage -- the issue of financial
independence for wives, the consequences of interfaith
relationships, and the promiscuity of their husbands. Against a
backdrop of rural England and Paris of the ancien regime, Griffith
reimagines the epistolary novel of sensibility in the tradition of
Samuel Richardson and Jean-Jacques Rousseau from a feminist
perspective that centers on strong, intelligent, and virtuous
women. Two sisters exchange letters about urgent ethical questions
concerning love, marriage, morality, art, the duties of wives and
husbands, and passion versus reason, while two men correspond about
the same subjects. At the story's center is the deep distress of
Emily Woodville, a virtuous young newlywed who suspects her husband
of infidelity with a French marchioness from his past. The third
volume in the series Eighteenth-Century Novels by Women, The
Delicate Distress contributes to our understanding of the
development of the novel. As Cynthia Ricciardi and Susan Staves
show, Griffith's exploration of the psychology of characters who
observe and reflect but engage in no grand public actions
anticipates Henry James. The editors' introduction places The
Delicate Distress firmly in the tradition of the English novel,
provides the most complete biography available on Griffith's life,
and brings together the most important eighteenth- and
twentieth-century criticism of the novelist's work.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
