I'm briefly interrupting my read-through of novels which may have been written by the authoress of The Woman of Colour, to return to an authoress for whom I have a real soft spot. Not long ago, I posted about the obscure Regency poet and novelist Eliza Kirkham Mathews (EKM) (1772-1802), who lingers in my affections, not for her writing--which never, in my opinion rises above mediocrity--but for the touching story of her brief life. She is best known for her 1801 novel, What Has Been, a heartfelt but hackneyed sentimental novel with many autobiographical elements. Chawton House is bringing out a scholarly edition of this novel this September (see below for more info).
   I was both interested and touched to learn that some of EKM’s unpublished manuscripts survive to this day. The London-based firm, Jarndyce Antiquarian Booksellers, recently offered for sale one of Mathews’ manuscripts, probably written when she was in her early twenties. It is a gothic novel, titled Romance of the Turret or, Anecdotes of a Catholic Family.  According to Jess Starr and Brian Lake of Jarndyce, the novel features a vulnerable foundling heroine, a haunted Abbey, a garrulous servant, an evil priest, an incest tease, and some violent subplots. In other words, it’s a typical Gothic novel. The manuscript has been acquired by Yale University and is held at its Lewis Walpole library. 
​   Someone valued this manuscript enough to carefully preserve it. If EKM wrote it around 1798, then it was after her 1797 marriage to Charles Mathews, a comic actor. The newly-married couple visited his family in London, then Mathews joined a provincial theatre circuit which toured Hull, then York. While he was making his name on the stage, Eliza aspired to earn income with her pen...

​     A naïve young lady travels to Bath with an older female companion and ventures into society. She meets a charming and witty young man. But will her dreams of romance be destroyed when it is discovered that she is not from a wealthy and distinguished family?
     This is not Northanger Abbey, this is The Aunt and the Niece. The Aunt and the Niece was anonymously published in 1804, and was subsequently attributed to the author of Eversfield Abbey (1806), The Woman of Colour (1809), and other novels. If the attribution chain is correct, this authoress moved from Minerva Press (considered to be a low-brow publishing house) to the respectable John Crosby and then to Black, Perry, and Kingsbury, publishers who did not specialize in fiction. Then she went back to Minerva for two more novels. The authoress could be Mrs. Bayfield, but Mrs. E.M. Foster is also tangled up in this chain of attributions--or it might even be a third person whose name has been lost.
    The Aunt and the Niece is a brisk-moving two-volume novel with a satisfying amount of drama. Typically of novels of this period, it relies upon untimely death and misunderstanding for its plot, and coincidence for its resolution. The villains are satisfyingly despicable. In fact, the authoress throws some shade at her readers when she suggests that they won't be as interested in the virtuous characters...

     ​In the last post, I explained that I am reading my way through the novels attributed to Mrs. E.M. Foster and Mrs. E.G. Bayfield, who as far as I know were two different people, although they have been credited with many of the same titles, such as Eversfield Abbey.
     Eversfield Abbey is not a gothic novel, although the heroine, Agnes Eversfield, does venture out alone to the family chapel when she notices candles burning there in the middle of the night. She encounters no mad monks or ghosts but, hiding behind her mother’s memorial urn, she is shocked to see her widowed father marrying a French émigré in a secret midnight ceremony. Mr. Eversfield has been inveigled into the match by the connivance of Father St. Quintin and she feels powerless to interfere.
​    Agnes is the only child and is therefore the heir to the Eversfield estates--unless of course, another little Eversfield comes along. Dad wants to see her marry her cousin, Sir Barnard. However, just like Mr. Eversfield, Sir Barnard is a Catholic. Our heroine is a Protestant because her late mother was a Protestant. In other words, this novel takes up the issue of mixed marriages which would have been much more controversial at this time. Before her death, Agnes’s mother urged her husband to not pressure Agnes into marrying a Catholic, not even their beloved nephew, without Agnes’ full consent. Agnes loves her cousin like a brother, while he greatly admires her beauty and intelligence and does intend to marry her when they are both older. Fate intervenes...

CMP #214: Mrs. Foster has thoughts: review of Light and Shade, 1803 
​  Of the several thousand novels published during the long eighteenth century, The Woman of Colour has a special place in the hearts of the academy because the protagonist is a woman of colour. I reviewed the novel here. Some academics speculate that the author of The Woman of Colour might actually be a woman of colour. I will weigh up the case for that, but Mrs. E.M. Foster and Mrs. E.G. Bayfield are the top candidates for the answer to the question: “who wrote The Woman of Colour”? The answer isn't clear because Foster and Bayfield have been attributed as authors of the same titles. For example, Bayfield and not Foster is listed as the author of Light and Shade in some references.
   Therefore, I am following the tangled trail of title page attributions and—here’s a novel thought—actually reading the books authored by Foster and Bayfield to look for similarities with The Woman of Colour in language, plot, tropes, and themes...