An instant bestseller when it was published in America, the sentimental novel Charlotte Temple speaks to the popularity of the genre-and the public thirst for fiction-from the early national period and beyond. This Norton Critical Edition is based on the first American edition of 1794; the author's original spellings have been maintained. It is accompanied by a detailed introduction, explanatory annotations, and A Note on the Text. An unusually rich "Contexts" section is thematically organized into four parts-"Women in Early America: Intellect, Education, Sexuality," "Reading in Early America," "The American Sentimental," and "Selections from Rowson's Writings"-and includes works from Rowson's time to our own. Ten illustrations from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are reproduced to further enrich the reading experience. "Criticism" collects thirteen insightful assessments of Charlotte Temple spanning four centuries and addressing its central issues. Contributors include Matthew Carey, Samuel L. Knapp, Larzer Ziff, Jane P. Tompkins, Gareth Evans, Julia A. Stern, and Marion Rust, among others. A Chronology of Susanna Rowson's life and works and a Selected Bibliography are also included.

Charlotte Temple is a naive girl who is courted by an older man and brought to America where she is left alone, pregnant and afraid. It is a heartbreaking story about lost innocence, betrayal and prolonged guilt. Charlotte Temple is a 15-year-old girl from a loving British family who catches the eye of the charismatic soldier, John Montraville. With the help of Charlotte's schoolteacher, Montraville is able to convince her to leave home and join him in America. Separated from her family, Charlotte falls on hard times when Montraville eventually abandons her. She is left alone and pregnant, unable to find support due to her child's illegitimacy. Charlotte reaches out to her nobleman father hoping to be brought back into the family fold. Charlotte Temple is a love story that ends in unexpected tragedy. It is fueled by the neglect of a young girl, whose life is changed forever. With more than 200 editions produced in the U.S., Temple is considered Rowson's most popular work. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Charlotte Temple is both modern and readable.

Lucy Temple (1828) is a novel by Susanna Rowson. Inspired in part by the author's experiences in America-she was brought there by her father, a Royal Navy officer, and place under house arrest during the American Revolution-Lucy Temple, the sequel to her bestselling novel Charlotte Temple, fits squarely into the popular genre of the seduction novel. Alongside such works as Hannah Webster Foster's The Coquette (1797), Rowson's novel continues to inform scholars on the historical portrayal of women's sexuality in English and American literature. "Such an assemblage of youth and innocence naturally attracted the young soldiers: they stopped; and, as the little cavalcade passed, almost involuntarily pulled off their hats. A tall, elegant girl looked at Montraville and blushed: he instantly recollected the features of Charlotte Temple, whom he had once seen and danced with at a ball at Portsmouth." From this brief chance encounter, so much suffering ensues. Not long after meeting her on the street, Lieutenant John Montraville seduces young Charlotte and convinces her to leave her family and friends behind to join him in the new world. There, spurred on by rumors of infidelity and harboring his own sinister motives, he soon abandons his innocent wife, leaving her alone in a country where nobody knows her name. Although her father reaches her in time to see her once more, she soon succumbs to illness and poverty, leaving a young daughter behind. Lucy Temple is a tragic story of romance and morality from a leading writer and educator of her time. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Susanna Rowson's Lucy Temple is a classic work of British-American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Lucy Temple (1828) is a novel by Susanna Rowson. Inspired in part by the author’s experiences in America—she was brought there by her father, a Royal Navy officer, and place under house arrest during the American Revolution—Lucy Temple, the sequel to her bestselling novel Charlotte Temple, fits squarely into the popular genre of the seduction novel. Alongside such works as Hannah Webster Foster’s The Coquette (1797), Rowson’s novel continues to inform scholars on the historical portrayal of women’s sexuality in English and American literature. “Such an assemblage of youth and innocence naturally attracted the young soldiers: they stopped; and, as the little cavalcade passed, almost involuntarily pulled off their hats. A tall, elegant girl looked at Montraville and blushed: he instantly recollected the features of Charlotte Temple, whom he had once seen and danced with at a ball at Portsmouth.” From this brief chance encounter, so much suffering ensues. Not long after meeting her on the street, Lieutenant John Montraville seduces young Charlotte and convinces her to leave her family and friends behind to join him in the new world. There, spurred on by rumors of infidelity and harboring his own sinister motives, he soon abandons his innocent wife, leaving her alone in a country where nobody knows her name. Although her father reaches her in time to see her once more, she soon succumbs to illness and poverty, leaving a young daughter behind. Lucy Temple is a tragic story of romance and morality from a leading writer and educator of her time. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Susanna Rowson’s Lucy Temple is a classic work of British-American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Charlotte Temple is a naïve girl who is courted by an older man and brought to America where she is left alone, pregnant and afraid. It is a heartbreaking story about lost innocence, betrayal and prolonged guilt. Charlotte Temple is a 15-year-old girl from a loving British family who catches the eye of the charismatic soldier, John Montraville. With the help of Charlotte’s schoolteacher, Montraville is able to convince her to leave home and join him in America. Separated from her family, Charlotte falls on hard times when Montraville eventually abandons her. She is left alone and pregnant, unable to find support due to her child’s illegitimacy. Charlotte reaches out to her nobleman father hoping to be brought back into the family fold. Charlotte Temple is a love story that ends in unexpected tragedy. It is fueled by the neglect of a young girl, whose life is changed forever. With more than 200 editions produced in the U.S., Temple is considered Rowson’s most popular work. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Charlotte Temple is both modern and readable.

Susanna Haswell Rowson, a popular and prolific writer, actress, and educator in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, had a truly transatlantic life and career, moving twice from England to America and publishing extensively in both countries. A transatlantic sensibility informs her fictionalised "history" of America, Reuben and Rachel, which traces ten generations of an extended family, beginning with the marriage of Christopher Columbus's son to a native Peruvian princess, moving through the Tudor succession crises and the colonial settlement of New England, and ending with the title characters, who leave England for America, renounce titles of nobility, and consider their children "true-born Americans." In Rowson's representation, the American character derives from fusion and hybridity, the results of intermarriage across racial, religious and national lives.

The `Sentimental Novel' was extremely popular in America after the Revolution, Written in a tradition established by Samuel Richardson, they told tales of vice and virtue based on true stories. Charlotte Temple and The Coquette by Hannah W. Foster (see below) were two of the most successful novels of the period. Reissued in paperback editions with new introductions, they offer a glimpse of the earliest American popular fiction. Both are also announced in the Oxford General Books catalogue for Autumn 1987.

As Americans began defining who was to be counted a citizen in their newly-established republic, Susanna Rowson’s comic opera Slaves in Algiers (1794) makes an earnest case that women be accorded the rights guaranteed to men, playfully turning sexual hierarchies on their head: “Women were born for universal sway; / Men to adore, be silent, and obey.” A fast-paced plot, engaging characterization, and rollicking songs ensured that Slaves in Algiers garnered success when it was first performed at the New Theater in Philadelphia. But Rowson’s play also engages in perpetuating racial stereotypes: set in Algiers at a time when Barbary pirates were seizing more and more U.S. ships in the Mediterranean Sea, Slaves in Algiers is written for a largely white audience driven by outrage at the enslavement of white people in the Barbary states. The play is critical of many aspects of North African cultures, particularly the practices of piracy and enslavement, while not acknowledging the moral and ethical taint of America’s own enslavement of African Americans. In recent years, critics have given increased attention to Slaves in Algiers, particularly to its interwoven feminist, nationalist, and imperialist themes, as well as to its treatment of Muslim and Jewish characters.This volume is one of a number of editions that have been drawn from the pages of the acclaimed Broadview Anthology of American Literature; like the others, it is designed to make a range of material from the anthology available in a format convenient for use in a wide variety of contexts.

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Rowson's tale of a young girl who elopes to the United States only to be abandoned by her fiance was once the bestselling novel in American literary history. This edition also includes Lucy Temple, the fascinating story of Charlotte's orphaned daughter.

Oh, my father! cried Miss Eldridge, tenderly taking his hand, "be not anxious on that account; for daily are my prayers offered to heaven that our lives may terminate at the same instant, and one grave receive us both; for why should I live when deprived of my only friend."