| 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. This post is one in a continuing series in which I look at the novels which were possibly written by the same author who wrote The Woman of Colour (1808). |
CMP#246 The Woman of Colour and the Attribution Chain
I'm sharing this information with anyone who might be researching The Woman of Colour and the attribution chain of 21 anonymous novels from six different publishers. This is one tangled attribution chain, and it's been difficult to visualize it. I hope this helps.
The first table gives the titles by genre, and by whether they are epistolary or narrative. I have not been able to read the early novel Federetta, so I can't confirm it's genre. By genre, I am distinguishing between books which are straightforward marriage-plot novels, and those that, like The Woman of Colour, don't have a conventional happy ending. As you can see, the earlier novels are mostly sentimental novels, while many of the later novels feature a heroine who is not married at the conclusion of the story. This includes, of course, The Woman of Colour. Many of the later use the "good girl/bad girl" approach, with the heroine finding happiness and her heedless friend or sister running into disaster. The Woman of Colour and one other novel are written in epistolary style. The Dead Letter Office, which is a pastiche book, not a single novel, also contains many letters which are not connected together into a single plot. A novella included in the volume, A Tale for the English Farmer's fireside, is a good girl/bad girl story. but not epistolary, so I have categorized The Dead Letter Office as a good girl/bad girl story.
The "by the Author of" column shows the books published earlier which are referenced on the title page of each book. The second column shows the novels which later referenced the title on their own title pages.
The second graphic shows more clearly the fact that Light and Shade (1803) is the linchpin on the attribution chain. It is the only novel that has the older titles on its "by the author page." Then it's like a new chain starts, only referencing the titles published in 1803 and after.
There are many mysteries. Why no attributions on the title page of The Aunt and the Niece? And why did the publisher, Crosby, merely say that A Winter in Bath was from the author of "two popular novels" instead of being specific? And if one woman wrote all the Crosby novels in the latter part of the table, why didn't Crosby publish A Woman of Colour? Why did it go to a different publisher? Crosby acknowledged the existence of the novel in later attributions.
For those not aware, the Crosby publishing house was more prestigious than the Minerva publishing house.
The first table gives the titles by genre, and by whether they are epistolary or narrative. I have not been able to read the early novel Federetta, so I can't confirm it's genre. By genre, I am distinguishing between books which are straightforward marriage-plot novels, and those that, like The Woman of Colour, don't have a conventional happy ending. As you can see, the earlier novels are mostly sentimental novels, while many of the later novels feature a heroine who is not married at the conclusion of the story. This includes, of course, The Woman of Colour. Many of the later use the "good girl/bad girl" approach, with the heroine finding happiness and her heedless friend or sister running into disaster. The Woman of Colour and one other novel are written in epistolary style. The Dead Letter Office, which is a pastiche book, not a single novel, also contains many letters which are not connected together into a single plot. A novella included in the volume, A Tale for the English Farmer's fireside, is a good girl/bad girl story. but not epistolary, so I have categorized The Dead Letter Office as a good girl/bad girl story.
The "by the Author of" column shows the books published earlier which are referenced on the title page of each book. The second column shows the novels which later referenced the title on their own title pages.
The second graphic shows more clearly the fact that Light and Shade (1803) is the linchpin on the attribution chain. It is the only novel that has the older titles on its "by the author page." Then it's like a new chain starts, only referencing the titles published in 1803 and after.
There are many mysteries. Why no attributions on the title page of The Aunt and the Niece? And why did the publisher, Crosby, merely say that A Winter in Bath was from the author of "two popular novels" instead of being specific? And if one woman wrote all the Crosby novels in the latter part of the table, why didn't Crosby publish A Woman of Colour? Why did it go to a different publisher? Crosby acknowledged the existence of the novel in later attributions.
For those not aware, the Crosby publishing house was more prestigious than the Minerva publishing house.
I've read and reviewed most of the novels in this chain. Sorry I was not able to link each title to my review, but if you click on the category "The Woman of Colour mystery" at upper right, you can see all the relevant posts. Update: I fixed some errors in my attribution chart. There are six different publishers, not five.
Key to genre and type of novel:
Diagram of attributions
This chart below does not show all of the attributions, because if I showed all the connections, it would be too busy to read. You can check each specific book for attributions in the chart above. This chart shows visually that the pre-1803 novels are connected to the later novels only through Light and Shade. No other novel published after 1803 refers back to the earlier novels which are attributed to Mrs. Foster or E.M.F.
The Woman of Colour connections are shown in red. Again, there are additional connections between the later novels but I have not drawn them all in.
This chart below does not show all of the attributions, because if I showed all the connections, it would be too busy to read. You can check each specific book for attributions in the chart above. This chart shows visually that the pre-1803 novels are connected to the later novels only through Light and Shade. No other novel published after 1803 refers back to the earlier novels which are attributed to Mrs. Foster or E.M.F.
The Woman of Colour connections are shown in red. Again, there are additional connections between the later novels but I have not drawn them all in.
It's thanks to the amazing Corvey Collection of novels that almost all of these novels are available digitally. Another invaluable resource is the British Fiction Homepage, which provides a listing of novels published between 1800-1829, their distribution to libraries, and their reviews.
Kandice Sharren and Kate Moffat at the Women's Print History Project podcast, the Monthly Mercury, do a deep dive on the attribution list. They note that some novels are referenced more than others. One suspects that a publisher would be more likely to mention a novel that sold well in his "by the author of" attributions, and he would not mention novels that didn't do well. But we still have the mystery of why Crosby was so coy about the "two popular novels" written by the author of A Winter in Bath. The transcript to the podcast is here.
Kandice Sharren and Kate Moffat at the Women's Print History Project podcast, the Monthly Mercury, do a deep dive on the attribution list. They note that some novels are referenced more than others. One suspects that a publisher would be more likely to mention a novel that sold well in his "by the author of" attributions, and he would not mention novels that didn't do well. But we still have the mystery of why Crosby was so coy about the "two popular novels" written by the author of A Winter in Bath. The transcript to the podcast is here.
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