| This blog explores social attitudes in Jane Austen's time, discusses her novels, reviews forgotten 18th century novels, and throws some occasional shade at the modern academy. The introductory post is here. My "six simple questions for academics" post is here. Spoilers abound in my discussion of these forgotten novels, and I discuss 18th-century attitudes which I do not necessarily endorse. |
CMP#221 Who Wrote the 1807 Novel Griffith Abbey?
The novel was republished in the US in 1808, probably pirated. I've been doing a deep dive on the works of a forgotten female author of Austen's time, Eliza Kirkham Mathews (EKM) (1772-1802), trying to confirm or disprove her authorship of novels published from her teenage years to years after her death. Recently, I gave a synopsis of the 1807 novel Griffith Abbey, a domestic-sentimental-historical novel with some Gothic touches. The author is given as "Mrs. C. Mathews." Scholars have differed in their attributions. Does "Mrs. C. Mathews" refer to EKM, the wife of Charles Mathews, or is it "Mrs. Charlotte Mathews," an authoress who published two novels before 1800?
To answer this question, I tried an approach which so far as I can tell hasn't been tried before--I actually read Griffith Abbey. I wanted to see if it resembles EKM's style in What Has Been, (a novel she undoubtedly wrote) or does it more closely resemble the style of Mrs. Charlotte Mathews, authoress of the 1794 novel Simple Facts, or, The History of an Orphan?
There are many similarities between these two authoresses--both the Mrs. Mathews tended to move their stories along at a brisk pace, unlike, say, Charlotte Smith or Mary Meeke, two popular writers who could turn out novels of four or five volumes. Both featured heroines who are orphaned and end up marrying their childhood sweethearts. But there are many such similarities between all novels of this era. You can scarcely ever find a heroine with two living parents. These stories all feature the travails of unimpeachably virtuous heroines, they stress Christian morality and they use the same narrative tics and plot points...
To answer this question, I tried an approach which so far as I can tell hasn't been tried before--I actually read Griffith Abbey. I wanted to see if it resembles EKM's style in What Has Been, (a novel she undoubtedly wrote) or does it more closely resemble the style of Mrs. Charlotte Mathews, authoress of the 1794 novel Simple Facts, or, The History of an Orphan?
There are many similarities between these two authoresses--both the Mrs. Mathews tended to move their stories along at a brisk pace, unlike, say, Charlotte Smith or Mary Meeke, two popular writers who could turn out novels of four or five volumes. Both featured heroines who are orphaned and end up marrying their childhood sweethearts. But there are many such similarities between all novels of this era. You can scarcely ever find a heroine with two living parents. These stories all feature the travails of unimpeachably virtuous heroines, they stress Christian morality and they use the same narrative tics and plot points...
Stylistic similarities
In this example from Griffith Abbey the narrator issues a warning when the hero rejoices over his engagement to Eugenia: “Ah! Erring youth! Sanguine, short-sighted Edmund, you thought not of misfortune, even when its ebon train was quickly approaching!” Likewise, in Simple Facts: “[Mrs. Harcourt] considered her little Maria, as a blessing from heaven…How little do mortals know the designs of heaven? –Could that tender parent have foreseen the distresses her beloved child was born to undergo, how different would have been her feelings?” And this, from Eliza Kirkham Mathews' What Has Been: “Frederick knew not then the misery in store for him; he knew not to what dreadful acts of atrocity the baser passions can lead the human mind.” And there are many such common traits. Many authors sprinkled little quotes throughout their narration, as in this example from What Has Been: “As Emily read this letter, she 'heaved no sigh, she shed no tear,' and, when she had finished reading it, sat stupidly grazing on it, insensible to every thing around her.”
And this example from Simple Facts: "Maria grew a beautiful child, and early discovered uncommon abilities; her tender mother undertook the delightful task ‘to teach the young idea how to shoot.’”
As for plot points, threats to chastity are ubiquitous, as are the impediments around class and riches that keep the hero and heroine apart until the happy ending. Heroines refuse to surrender their virtue to the wiles and designs of the villain. In What Has Been, the hero is briefly abducted to get him out of the way; in Griffith Abbey, the heroine is nearly abducted. In Simple Facts, the heroine is abducted and, to her credit, rescues herself. Both What Has Been and Griffith Abbey have women who go insane over losing the men they love, in Simple Facts, a nobly-born disappointed male suitor runs off and lives like a hermit.
In this example from Griffith Abbey the narrator issues a warning when the hero rejoices over his engagement to Eugenia: “Ah! Erring youth! Sanguine, short-sighted Edmund, you thought not of misfortune, even when its ebon train was quickly approaching!” Likewise, in Simple Facts: “[Mrs. Harcourt] considered her little Maria, as a blessing from heaven…How little do mortals know the designs of heaven? –Could that tender parent have foreseen the distresses her beloved child was born to undergo, how different would have been her feelings?” And this, from Eliza Kirkham Mathews' What Has Been: “Frederick knew not then the misery in store for him; he knew not to what dreadful acts of atrocity the baser passions can lead the human mind.” And there are many such common traits. Many authors sprinkled little quotes throughout their narration, as in this example from What Has Been: “As Emily read this letter, she 'heaved no sigh, she shed no tear,' and, when she had finished reading it, sat stupidly grazing on it, insensible to every thing around her.”
And this example from Simple Facts: "Maria grew a beautiful child, and early discovered uncommon abilities; her tender mother undertook the delightful task ‘to teach the young idea how to shoot.’”
As for plot points, threats to chastity are ubiquitous, as are the impediments around class and riches that keep the hero and heroine apart until the happy ending. Heroines refuse to surrender their virtue to the wiles and designs of the villain. In What Has Been, the hero is briefly abducted to get him out of the way; in Griffith Abbey, the heroine is nearly abducted. In Simple Facts, the heroine is abducted and, to her credit, rescues herself. Both What Has Been and Griffith Abbey have women who go insane over losing the men they love, in Simple Facts, a nobly-born disappointed male suitor runs off and lives like a hermit.
Sensibility for the sublime Chatgpt image Thematic differences:
But there are some discernable differences between Simple Facts and EKM's novels. EKM is an adherent of the cult of sensibility; in What Has Been, the "good" people in the book cannot step outside, or even look out of a window, without being transported by the beauties of the natural world. Likewise, Eugenia and Mrs. Evans in Griffith Abbey are "delighted with the sublimities of nature, [and] enjoyed the most refined and exquisite sensations while journeying over the tremendous hills of Scotland." Contrariwise, as scholar Ernest James Lovell explained, "a villain can take no delight in nature." In What Has Been, the heroine's aunt fails this test. She is “a good-natured though a weak woman" who agrees to walk with Emily along the western cliffs near Teignmouth, "at the same time remarking, she could not imagine what delight any body could take in ascending those frightful cliffs."
This critical test is not applied to heroine Maria Harcourt in Simple Facts. she does not exclaim over the scenery when she travels to Bath; rather, she is transfixed by the sight of a young hermit living in a hut, the one who turns out to be thwarted in love. Apart from that, "nothing worthy [of] notice happened the remainder of their journey."
Grammatical comparisons
I used artificial intelligence to compare Simple Facts with What Has Been, then I asked, does Griffith Abbey most closely resemble What Has Been or Simple Facts? Grok concluded that "Griffith Abbey’s sentence complexity, with longer sentences and frequent subordinate clauses, closely resembles What Has Been."
Here is an example of a sentence combining descriptions of nature with a complex sentence structure from Griffith Abbey: "Entering a cavern in the cliff, (hewn by the hand of hoary time,) from whence they had an extensive view of the expansive ocean, (whose lucid bosom reflected innumerous hues, the bright tinged purple, the lustrous silver, and the pallid green, till lost in the haze of distance) the little party seated themselves; and Eugenia lifted with fixed attention to Captain Donald, who now offered to relate all he knew of the fair maniac’s history.”
(For more about the sentence structure of What Has Been, see this earlier face off between What Has Been and the novel Constance.)
The sentences in Simple Facts are simpler and more straightforward, and are less apt to begin with an adverbial clause: ”Maria was received by her uncle and cousins with great pleasure, they at first shewed her every kind of attention, and Mrs. Young took a pleasure in hearing her praised. But her youngest daughter soon discovered a jealousy at her superior abilities, which she considered as a reproach to herself, and therefore conceived a violent hatred against her.”
Despite the clear differences, Grok AI concluded that one author could have written all three novels, if the greater sentence complexity and darker dramatic tone of the later novels reflected an evolution of the writer's style from 1794 to 1807. But I was holding back some crucial information from Grok AI...
But there are some discernable differences between Simple Facts and EKM's novels. EKM is an adherent of the cult of sensibility; in What Has Been, the "good" people in the book cannot step outside, or even look out of a window, without being transported by the beauties of the natural world. Likewise, Eugenia and Mrs. Evans in Griffith Abbey are "delighted with the sublimities of nature, [and] enjoyed the most refined and exquisite sensations while journeying over the tremendous hills of Scotland." Contrariwise, as scholar Ernest James Lovell explained, "a villain can take no delight in nature." In What Has Been, the heroine's aunt fails this test. She is “a good-natured though a weak woman" who agrees to walk with Emily along the western cliffs near Teignmouth, "at the same time remarking, she could not imagine what delight any body could take in ascending those frightful cliffs."
This critical test is not applied to heroine Maria Harcourt in Simple Facts. she does not exclaim over the scenery when she travels to Bath; rather, she is transfixed by the sight of a young hermit living in a hut, the one who turns out to be thwarted in love. Apart from that, "nothing worthy [of] notice happened the remainder of their journey."
Grammatical comparisons
I used artificial intelligence to compare Simple Facts with What Has Been, then I asked, does Griffith Abbey most closely resemble What Has Been or Simple Facts? Grok concluded that "Griffith Abbey’s sentence complexity, with longer sentences and frequent subordinate clauses, closely resembles What Has Been."
Here is an example of a sentence combining descriptions of nature with a complex sentence structure from Griffith Abbey: "Entering a cavern in the cliff, (hewn by the hand of hoary time,) from whence they had an extensive view of the expansive ocean, (whose lucid bosom reflected innumerous hues, the bright tinged purple, the lustrous silver, and the pallid green, till lost in the haze of distance) the little party seated themselves; and Eugenia lifted with fixed attention to Captain Donald, who now offered to relate all he knew of the fair maniac’s history.”
(For more about the sentence structure of What Has Been, see this earlier face off between What Has Been and the novel Constance.)
The sentences in Simple Facts are simpler and more straightforward, and are less apt to begin with an adverbial clause: ”Maria was received by her uncle and cousins with great pleasure, they at first shewed her every kind of attention, and Mrs. Young took a pleasure in hearing her praised. But her youngest daughter soon discovered a jealousy at her superior abilities, which she considered as a reproach to herself, and therefore conceived a violent hatred against her.”
Despite the clear differences, Grok AI concluded that one author could have written all three novels, if the greater sentence complexity and darker dramatic tone of the later novels reflected an evolution of the writer's style from 1794 to 1807. But I was holding back some crucial information from Grok AI...
Biographical evidence for authorship
Now, since EKM died in 1802, you might assume she couldn't be the author of Griffith Abbey but look how the publisher advertised the novel--by "the late Mrs. C. Mathews."
Now, since EKM died in 1802, you might assume she couldn't be the author of Griffith Abbey but look how the publisher advertised the novel--by "the late Mrs. C. Mathews."
 |  You can't always trust the catalogue. Over at the Internet Archive, an absolutely invaluable resource for finding obscure books, Simple Facts is attributed to Eliza Kirkham Mathews (see left). But EKM was not "Mrs. Mathews" in 1794 when Simple Facts came out. She was Miss Strong and hadn't even met Charles Mathews back then. So she couldn't be the Mrs. Mathews who wrote Simple Facts. Mrs. Charlotte Mathews wrote Simple Facts and we know EKM wrote What Has Been. Who wrote Griffith Abbey? It would help if we knew Charlotte Mathews' life dates--was she also dead by 1807? Unfortunately, we don't know anything about her. |
Eliza's self-portrait
However, we have another good reason for concluding that Griffith Abbey is a posthumous publication by EKM. She put a self-portrait into Volume II, in the person of a genteel girl fallen on hard times. The hero Sir Edmund, visiting friends while nursing his broken heart, is moping around Devonshire [which was EKM's home county] and notices “a young woman weeping over some papers which she held in her hand.” She awakes his compassion to an “exquisite degree.” It starts to rain so he approaches her cottage and asks to wait out the rain. He notices that the gentility of Eliza Dudley and her widowed mother is at odds with their poverty. “[E]very thing he saw, every sentence he heard, uttered by either of the strangers, increased his astonishment, and assured him they had seen brighter days”
The next day, he is passing by when he overhears the mother and daughter begging for mercy from a bailiff, who snarls: “This is quarter-day, as you well know, and Mr. Heartless, the squire’s steward, says as how he must be paid… if you can’t these here honest fellows must take your goods. So, Dick and Roger, you may begin to remove.”
Sir Edmund interposes: “Villain! At your peril dare to proceed."
He pays the overdue rent, then we learn the backstory of the distressed mother and daughter. Mrs. Dudley explains she was reduced to living on thirty pounds a year with her only surviving child, Eliza, after her husband was killed by “an epidemical disorder.”
“My Eliza possesses many useful and elegant accomplishments, which she has endeavoured to turn to advantage, but small have been the emoluments arising from her industry. Nature has liberally bestowed on her talents, which, till lately, I flattered myself would have been of infinite service to her but alas! genius, unpatronized by the great, too often withers in obscurity. Much time and attention has she lately bestowed on a novel which, I hoped would have afforded us at least transient comfort.
“The publisher to whom she sent it received it with cool politeness, and at length returned it, saying he could not think of sending into the world a work in which he discovered few merits, unless she could prevail on some well-known literary character to patronize it. Alas! my child is a child of obscurity; ‘the world forgetting, by the world forgot.’ Her poetical talents are far from despicable, and her genius for other works of taste, vivid, elegant, and refined; yet of what service are these, without powerful friends."
However, we have another good reason for concluding that Griffith Abbey is a posthumous publication by EKM. She put a self-portrait into Volume II, in the person of a genteel girl fallen on hard times. The hero Sir Edmund, visiting friends while nursing his broken heart, is moping around Devonshire [which was EKM's home county] and notices “a young woman weeping over some papers which she held in her hand.” She awakes his compassion to an “exquisite degree.” It starts to rain so he approaches her cottage and asks to wait out the rain. He notices that the gentility of Eliza Dudley and her widowed mother is at odds with their poverty. “[E]very thing he saw, every sentence he heard, uttered by either of the strangers, increased his astonishment, and assured him they had seen brighter days”
The next day, he is passing by when he overhears the mother and daughter begging for mercy from a bailiff, who snarls: “This is quarter-day, as you well know, and Mr. Heartless, the squire’s steward, says as how he must be paid… if you can’t these here honest fellows must take your goods. So, Dick and Roger, you may begin to remove.”
Sir Edmund interposes: “Villain! At your peril dare to proceed."
He pays the overdue rent, then we learn the backstory of the distressed mother and daughter. Mrs. Dudley explains she was reduced to living on thirty pounds a year with her only surviving child, Eliza, after her husband was killed by “an epidemical disorder.”
“My Eliza possesses many useful and elegant accomplishments, which she has endeavoured to turn to advantage, but small have been the emoluments arising from her industry. Nature has liberally bestowed on her talents, which, till lately, I flattered myself would have been of infinite service to her but alas! genius, unpatronized by the great, too often withers in obscurity. Much time and attention has she lately bestowed on a novel which, I hoped would have afforded us at least transient comfort.
“The publisher to whom she sent it received it with cool politeness, and at length returned it, saying he could not think of sending into the world a work in which he discovered few merits, unless she could prevail on some well-known literary character to patronize it. Alas! my child is a child of obscurity; ‘the world forgetting, by the world forgot.’ Her poetical talents are far from despicable, and her genius for other works of taste, vivid, elegant, and refined; yet of what service are these, without powerful friends."
The mother's description of Eliza's failure to find a publisher is surely an echo of the setbacks that EKM herself met with in her efforts to find a publisher, and resemble the travails of the heroine in What Has Been.
The real Eliza did find a patron for her final volume of poems, published posthumously. She was granted permission to dedicate the volume to the "Right Honourable [Charlotte] the Countess Fitzwilliam." (who is pictured at left in a portrait by Joshua Reynolds). I don't know how EKM came to the Countess's attention, but it must have been a final gratification for her before her death.
So I think this autobiographical subplot in Griffith Abbey settles the matter. Charlotte Mathews is not Mrs. C. Mathews. It pays to read the novel, you never know what you might find!
For more about the plot of Griffith Abbey, see here. For more about Eliza Kirkham Mathew's sad life story, see here and see here.
The real Eliza did find a patron for her final volume of poems, published posthumously. She was granted permission to dedicate the volume to the "Right Honourable [Charlotte] the Countess Fitzwilliam." (who is pictured at left in a portrait by Joshua Reynolds). I don't know how EKM came to the Countess's attention, but it must have been a final gratification for her before her death.
So I think this autobiographical subplot in Griffith Abbey settles the matter. Charlotte Mathews is not Mrs. C. Mathews. It pays to read the novel, you never know what you might find!
For more about the plot of Griffith Abbey, see here. For more about Eliza Kirkham Mathew's sad life story, see here and see here.
One other thing--the sincerest form of flattery
I haven't been very complimentary about EKM's writing skills, so it's only fair to tell you that someone thought she was worth plagiarizing from. An anonymous author writing a serialized novel for Lloyd's Entertaining Journal in 1847 must have had an old copy of Griffith Abbey on hand. The two passages I noticed were descriptions of scenery. Here is one of them--the left hand side is Evelina the Pauper's Child, on the right is Griffith Abbey. No doubt there were other borrowings.
I think EKM would have been flattered!
I haven't been very complimentary about EKM's writing skills, so it's only fair to tell you that someone thought she was worth plagiarizing from. An anonymous author writing a serialized novel for Lloyd's Entertaining Journal in 1847 must have had an old copy of Griffith Abbey on hand. The two passages I noticed were descriptions of scenery. Here is one of them--the left hand side is Evelina the Pauper's Child, on the right is Griffith Abbey. No doubt there were other borrowings.
I think EKM would have been flattered!
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I haven't provided a synopsis or review of Charlotte Mathews' Simple Facts but I will return to this novel in the future in an extended discussion of fainting in these old novels.
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