Eliza HaywoodRecensioni

I never got to write a proper review about this book, and I still don't really have the time, but let me try: Love in Excess is delightful. It took a while to get through, seeing as it was published in 1719, but it was the most fun "historical" and "classic" books I've ever read.

If you need any other proof that 18th-century mass culture was bawdy, fun, and downright frivolous compared to their Victorian descendants, this is the text for you. It's camp really--Here we have bodice-ripping, disguised identities, fatal love triangles, and every and other ribald and ridiculous scenario you can basically think off. Modern day romance novels have much to owe to Haywood, and seeing the seeds of such a lusty genre was worth the page-long paragraphs that truly tested me at times. I laughed a lot, groaned a lot, rolled my eyes a lot, and yet still kept turning the pages to see what would happen. I loved it.

Thank you Ms. Haywood, you wrote a gem.

I found this short read to be rather enjoyable. Not your typical cautionary tale from the Romantic era -I really enjoyed how the narrator exercised her power in a time when women had so little.

Fantomina; or, Love in a Maze is a great, unique read that really hooked me.

I read this for a Brit Lit assignment and I was blown away. The lead female character is very manipulative, trying to get herself a man by donning many disguises. Depending on who looks at it, this woman is either a feminist genius or an evil woman. Either way, she's a really interesting character to follow.

Fantomina tries to woo Beauplaisir. When it doesn't go to plan, she wears numerous disguises and gets him to cheat on her with her. The ruse can't go on forever though. Once she sends many letters and tries to win him, she finds out some tragic news that brings her plight to an end.

Fantomina is a bit of a tragic character yet at the same time very strong. She has high self worth and wants to get what she wants. The struggles she faces are typical for the time, yet she doesn't go about them in a way that is accepted by society. She doesn't end up with the happy ending that would be expected of literature at the time. These disguises were used for comedic effect, yet this story inverts the typical trope of the time.

Overall, this story was awesome! I highly recommend it for people who want to read some older works.

Five out of five stars.

Didn't quite finished Anti-Pamela as I skimmed through the last 1/3. I enjoyed Shamela more than Anti-Pamela from an entertainment point of view, but Anti-Pamela is definitely more interesting in terms of what it says about female sexuality. Fielding seems to focus completely on class and what he deems as hypocrisy in the original Pamela. Both parodies are more fun to read, however, than the original.

A bit of a cautionary tale about going against your parents and a whole lot of the usual Eliza Haywood "stay away from men, ladies" message. It's heartbreaking, strange, and sad. With its setting in Venice, kidnapping, and menacing men, it's very nearly a straight up Gothic, several decades early.

Content warning: there's sexual assault and its aftermath in this book.

I can't believe this book has no index!

How is this any different from Princess of Cleves? It's just as dull, boring, uninteresting, uncompelling, and dreadful. The only difference is that a few elements were ratcheted up several degrees, such as the note-passing, bodice-ripping, and general, deplorable, ghastly, objectionable whoredom. It's too overt a conceit that women who are frank about their sexuality and desires conveniently drop dead, while those who are chaste get to skate. No fair that D'elmont gets to live happily ever after while leaving ruined lives in his wake. How good looking IS this guy anyway, that so many surrendered themselves to him to the ultimate fault? Ladies, there are other gentlemen available on earth, go find one. Jeez, nobody deserves to have so much vaginal pining offered up to him. The book is garbage.

How is this any different from Princess of Cleves? It's just as dull, boring, uninteresting, uncompelling, and dreadful. The only difference is that a few elements were ratcheted up several degrees, such as the note-passing, bodice-ripping, and general, deplorable, ghastly, objectionable whoredom. It's too overt a conceit that women who are frank about their sexuality and desires conveniently drop dead, while those who are chaste get to skate. No fair that D'elmont gets to live happily ever after while leaving ruined lives in his wake. How good looking IS this guy anyway, that so many surrendered themselves to him to the ultimate fault? Ladies, there are other gentlemen available on earth, go find one. Jeez, nobody deserves to have so much vaginal pining offered up to him. The book is garbage.

I love when people assume that any novel that was a bestseller in Jane Austen's time must have been quaint and adorable. That's when I get to tell them about all the prostitution and seduction and attempted abortions and attempted date-rape and out-of-wedlock babies.

True, Miss Betsy Thoughtless was a little before Austen's time – it was published in 1751, and Austen was born in 1775. But Eliza Haywood was widely known and eagerly read by Austen's contemporaries. I even found traces of her influence in the humorous writing Austen did as a teenager. (Stop me now, or I'll nerd out all over the place.)

I think one reason Betsy Thoughtless was so popular is that the female characters are completely human. Sure, they talk funny. But they like it when guys buy them gifts and talk about how hot they are. (Note to the curious: A pet squirrel was the kind of present that would move you up to the top of the list when it came to Guys The Girls Want At Their Next Party. Fer realz.) These women don't want to get married right away, because partying and flirting all night is fine if you're a single woman but What A Ho territory once you have a husband.

Don't get me wrong – Eliza Haywood wanted to teach her female readers some strong moral lessons. Eighteenth-century women really did have to be careful how far they went with a guy, because ruining your reputation meant ruining your shot at a respectable marriage and you couldn't just decide, what the heck, you'll go back to college and take charge of your own life. Career options were horribly limited. Being a single woman meant, at best, being looked down upon socially. And (as Austen herself said and knew from experience) single women in those times had a dreadful propensity to be poor.

And if you think single mothers have it rough now, try being one in eighteenth-century England.

But reading Eliza Haywood is very different from reading Samuel Richardson's Pamela, another popular novel of the time. Pamela has no discernible carnal desires, and only has to defend her virginity from those who would try to steal it from her – there's no way she'd give it away before her wedding night. She'd never feel the slightest temptation to do so. Sex? Fun? Only if you're a guy.

Eliza Haywood knew that women were just as tempted as men were to live, um, unchastely. Especially when a sophisticated French guy who knows how to please a lady comes along. In Pamela, he would have gotten his way only by forcing it. In Miss Betsy Thoughtless, Betsy listens with horror as her friend describes being seduced because being seduced is fun:

"In a word, my dear Miss Betsy, from one liberty he proceeded to another; till, at last, there was nothing left for him to ask, or me to grant!"

In Pamela's universe, this would have been a one-time Fall From Grace, and probably a fatal one. In Betsy's, her friend (the aptly named Miss Forward) has an affair with the guy all summer, and only stops, regretfully, when he leaves town.

I'm not recommending that anyone who doesn't love or live in the eighteenth century run out and grab this book. I read it as part of my research for a Regency novel. I'm the kind of person who reads Austen for fun, and even I found this a bit of a slog at times. The plot moves along briskly enough, but the language is a bit dense.

Just know that this time period wasn't all tea parties and ladylike behavior.

What a delightful, unique novel! The novel is comprised of three sections, each of which is almost a complete story. In the first part, the protagonist Alovisa falls in love with the charming D'Elmont. As a woman in 18th century Paris, social etiquette forbids her from indicating her interest (until after he proposes!). So Alovisa sends him an anonymous, flirtatious note. At the next ball D'Elmont, meets and begins to court Amena. With the help of devious servants and unfortunate circumstances, eventually D'Elmont is convinced to marry. In the second part, D'Elmont, now married, falls hopelessly in love with a young women of whom he is a legal guardian. His marriage quickly become an unhappy one with a jealous wife maneuvering to discover her rival and the husband plotting seduction. Hijinks ensue, resulting in tragedy for all concerned. In the final section, D'Elmont is in Italy, where once again several woman fall madly in love with him and even more unlikely hijinks ensue.

While the plots are operatic in scope and almost laugh-out-loud ridiculous, many of the female characters were developed into something more than stereotyped temptresses and convent girls (although some were caricatures designed to move the convoluted plots forward). For some reason, I expected the novel to be Alovisa's story and so it felt quite disjointed in the reading. The other major drawback is the complete lack of chapters or line-breaks, making it hard to read in short sessions as it is hard to pick up the story line again. Other than those minor complaints, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.

This Haywood novel defies genres. It is political satire, adventure story (fantastical, futuristic and fairy tale-like) and an amatory fiction. This is a ‘Pre-Adamatical History’ written thousands of years ago about ‘a great number of remarkable occurrences, which happened, and may again happen, to several Empires, Kingdoms, Republics and particular Great Men ... first translated into Chinese at the command of the Emperor, by a Cabal of seventy philosophers, and now retranslated into English, by the son of a Mandarin residing in London’. Haywood winking at her readers.

It records the battle between the good but naive Princess Evovaii reigning Princess of Ijaveo and the wicked Ochihatou – master magician, prime minister, power behind the throne apparently inspired by Robert Walpole. Perhaps Eovaii is England, enchanted, seduced and exploited by the evil Ochihatou. There are lost princes, usurpers to thrones, princesses on the run, civil wars and fighting empires.

In all the literary genres Eliza Haywood employs here she excels. As a royalist she writes the most tremendous republican speech for one character, Allahuza. ‘Remember it is the cause of Heaven, of Loyalty, of Glory and of Freedom, which urges you to Arms, and will be rewarded with their united Blessings. But if you continue much longer in this Inactivity, this Coward Passiveness, Chains, Slavery and Wretchedness will be entailed upon you from Generation to Generation. Woes, of which yet no Description can be given, will be your portion while alive and everlasting Infamy attend your Names when dead.’ No wonder she was a propagandist. Lesser-known novels like Haywood’s Eovaii are fascinating, challenging and ultimately thrilling.

‘God! With what an air he walked! What new attractions dwelt in every motion – And when he returned the salutes of any that passed by him, how graceful was his bow! How lofty his mien, and yet, how affable! A sort of an inexpressible awful grandeur, blended with tender languishments, strikes the amazed beholder at once with fear and joy! Something beyond humanity shines around him! Such looks descending angels wear, when sent on heavenly embassies to some favourite mortal! Such is their form! Such radiant beams they dart; and with such smiles they temper their divinity with softness! Oh! With what pain did I restrain myself from flying to him! From rushing into his arms! From hanging on his neck, and wildly uttering all the furious wishes of my burning soul – I trembled – panted – raged with inward agonies.’

That is the effect Count D’Elmont – basically a eighteenth century Spencer from Made in Chelsea - has on just one woman in this lively novel about female desire, love and its consequences. He marries for ambition and the plot is the slow revealing to him of what really matters; loving a woman without a care for her fortune or position – although clearly it helps him if she is an exquisite beauty. Of the women who are his victims, each has a story to tell from the proud beauty Alovysa, foolish, deluded Amena and the virtuous but tempted Melliora. The comic, interfering female role is played by the intriguing Melantha who does not get her just desserts (hurray). ‘Melantha who was not of a humour to take anything to heart, was married in a short time, and had the good fortune not to be suspected by her husband, though she brought him a child in seven months after her wedding.’

Disgraces, cast-off daughters, duels to the death, kidnapped beauties and convents all feature in this exciting work. Haywood’s is a witty, entertaining pen writing stories that eighteenth-century young ladies must have sighed over – especially the dénouement when d’Elmont is alone in bed and his love comes to wake him and tell him her story. ‘Forgetting all decorum, he flew out of the bed, catched her in his arms, and almost stifled her with kisses; which she returning with pretty near an equal eagerness, ‘you will not chide me from me now?’ she cried.

This story is brilliantly ridiculous and populated with characters of great sensibility. Everything in the text is exaggerated and heightened, which makes for a fabulous reading experience. This is the fluff of the 18th century!

This book is written from the perspective of young, single, wealthy adults who have nothing else to do but write letters and journals about the drama in their lives. An entertaining way of looking at life for Gentleman and Women of the Victorian era. Some class discussion will be required to provide context, and vocabulary support. Given the vague nature of the stories in the text the teacher will need to scaffold the lesson and the reading to ensure everyone has a full understanding of the subject being studied.

The title of Eliza Haywood’s novel is very apt – the characters all do love to excess, sometimes to annoyance. The double standard is alive and well in her work, though she does have some interesting comments about it. While the tension in the book rarely flags – always something melodramatic going on – there are way too many coincidences for the plot to hold water. Some of the characters suffer from too-good-to-be-true syndrome while some bad characters are a bit flat. But many of her characters actually have, well, “character” and she has an encouragingly wide variety of female characters – not just divided into saints and whores. The “good” characters can be just as concerned with sex as the “bad” characters and the latter often come off as more interesting or sympathetic than the former. The writing is certainly overblown at times (for example, some characters are incoherent in their letters in order to express their wild emotions – but seriously, people should be able to control themselves in letters. They can rewrite and take time before sending them off). Perhaps the best way to handle that is to do some skimming over the parts where people go off on love or hate in letters.

The book is divided into three parts and follows the loves and relationships of Count d’Elmont, his various partners and his friends and relations. In the first part, the Count is pursued by the aggressive Alovisa and the genial Amena. His brother falls in love with Alovisa’s sister encounters obstacle in the way to their happiness. In the second, d’Elmont has married Alovisa but falls in love with his ward Melliora. The pair struggles with their attraction while their neighbors attempt to pursue the married couple. In the third part, the Count is in Italy and encounters more mixed-pair lovers and identity confusion while separated from Melliora.

The plot is entertaining enough, though too convoluted with a lot of predictable tropes for the time. However, those are all tolerable problems. The thing that really annoyed me was the repetitive side plot in Part III. In Part I, the Count’s brother describes his romance and in the Part III Frankville takes on that role. The stories are too similar – both make friends, who they take pains to criticize, then describe how they fell in love with the friend’s love/fiancé – love at first sight, especially bathetic in Frankville’s story – and how the former friend turned on them with violence. Really, the author didn’t seem too concerned with keeping the story in the realm of realism, so there was no need for repetition.

Although the Count is the hero and the author takes pains to describe all his good qualities, he is rather annoying. If the author had been a man, I’d think it was some sort of wish-fulfillment character or how the author delusionally saw himself. Pretty much every woman falls in love with d’Elmont, often at first sight or without even talking to him. He makes a marriage of convenience, then starts mistreating his wife when he falls in love with another woman. Alovisa is portrayed as manipulative and overly passionate, and she does some things that he later finds out about which make him angry – but he still comes off as a cad dumping his wife – who he married for her money – for someone else. Also, he’s a hypocrite – really, he’s just going along with the values of the time, but still makes him unlikeable. For example, it was not acceptable for a woman to pursue a man – when some women openly pursue him, he has only scorn for them (though, because he’s so perfect, he doesn’t out and out say it – just thinks it) but when he pursues Amena and Melliora, of course that’s acceptable even though there are several good reasons for him not to. In the case of Amena, he doesn’t love her, puts her in a compromising position, lies openly to her, is indifferent to her when she goes to a convent, but then decides he wants her to come back when he gets mad at Alovisa. Melliora is his true love, at least the author constantly reminds readers of the fact, but he still treats her badly. Of course as a man, married, in a position of authority over her – he’d be sexually harassing her today. But he manages to compounds it. Sneaking into her room at night makes him come off like some Mr. B from Pamela. Also, he keeps talking to his friend the Baron about his relationship with Melliora. In those scenes he comes off like some stereotypical insensitive frat boy high-fiving his frat buddies over date-raping a freshman. At least he’s not too perfect to be true, like some heroes – say in Evelina, where her eventual true love was unbelievably good. But the author’s insistence on his perfection makes this annoying.

The female characters are interesting and, as with another Haywood – The Injured Husband – the bad characters can be more appealing than the good ones. In that book, the hero and heroine were a rather dull lot, redeemed only by a spate of murdering and cross-dressing at the end. The real interest lay with the villainess of the piece, who, along with her servant, was endlessly inventive in designing stratagems to keep adding to her collection of lovers. Alovisa is probably the bad girl of the first two books, but her plots are more high-school bitchery levels, not like the murdering in the third part (because apparently all Italians are prone to it, according to Haywood). She is a bit like the bad Baroness from the Injured Husband – intelligent, attractive, intent on getting what she wants. Unfortunately, she gets what she wants but can’t keep it. After her husband falls in love with Melliora, he starts treating her badly. She does intercept one of his letters to Amena, but to be honest it seemed like an excuse so that he could have a reason to ignore her – having already decided it. She was quite manipulative in sabotaging his relationship to Amena, but he knew about that when he married her. Her despair over losing him does make one reflect on the fact that he knew she loved him, married her, was content for a while, then did a sudden change to coldness. It’s hard to go along with his Melliora infatuation for various reasons mentioned above. So Alovisa does come off like the mistreated wife, he like some cold withholding Victorian husband. She somewhat paradoxically is the one representing duty and fidelity, dull virtues that one would more likely associate with Melliora – she’s the only one of the group of herself, the Count, the Baron, Melantha and Melliora that isn’t trying to break up their marriage.

Melliora is the too-good heroine of the book, but even she is shown to have strong sexual desires. Pretty much every woman demonstrates some sexual passion, a contrast to the strictures of the time which said that a woman shouldn’t show any preference or affection for a man who hadn’t been approved by her family as a suitor. And it’s not just that Melliora is strongly attracted to the Count – after he sneaks in to her bedroom but is interrupted, she prevents him from coming back by blocking the door. He can’t make a repeated attempt. Instead of relief, however, she is actually disappointed. She does show some goody-goody behavior by blaming herself for many of the negative consequences and running off to a convent, but it is clear that she really wants to have sex with d’Elmont and only says no because of social reasons – and that she might have been willing to let that go except for the interruptions. Even the fact that he is married seems less of a deterrent to her than the implications of losing her virginity. In this book, Haywood doesn’t punish her female characters too much for this slipup. One of the sympathetic side characters sleeps with the man she loves but after overcoming a number of obstacles, they end up happily married. Even Melantha, the Baron’s sister, who pursues the Count and has a one-hour stand with him, ends up comfortably married with a husband who doesn’t seem to mind a baby after 7 months. (Her behavior does raise the question – is Melantha a rapist? If a man had done what she did – pretend to be someone else to sleep with a woman – he might be considered one. An incident like that in Georgiana Spencer’s The Sylph – the guy pretty much came off as a rapist). Haywood did have some punishment in the short novel Lasselia, where a woman had an affair with a married man. She was discovered and packed off to a convent, but in the end it seemed like she was happy where she was. Not like, say, Pamela, where though it never happens, the implication is that the main character would be irreparable ruined or The Monk, where after the main female character is raped, she is then murdered, and another pretty, well-connected female character is quickly shoved in the plot to replace her as the love interest for the main non-evil male character (the main male character being the evil rapist monk). But Melliora's situation is Pamela-like in that she and d'Elmont keep getting interrupted. It does give the impression that the central character at least shouldn't be sleeping with anyone, even if it is the man she eventually marries.

So an interesting and entertaining book, but plenty of plot and character problems. Makes good reading when you’ve read too many depressing Communism and Holocaust books.

Written in 1725, this story concerns a young woman who goes to quite extreme lengths to try to interest and then to keep a man on whom her sights are set. Both from exclusive families, her means for capturing his attention were limited. The methods she chose yield the usual result. It is written by an author unfamiliar to me, so I cannot tell if the story is meant to be one of caution to young folks, though probably not, as it seems to me to be more of a titillating read. I daresay the author caused quite a stir in her day! Personally, I did not find it to be my cup of tea, but appreciated the opportunity to try something different. Thank you to keristars for recommending this book.½

Eliza Haywood was a hugely popular novelist contemporary of Daniel Defoe. She was prolific and multi-talented, also working in the theater as both an actress and playwright. This was her first published novel. David Oakleaf, who wrote the Introduction for this edition, describes it as "the first bodice-ripper". I experienced it more as an overwrought soap opera and thought Haywood's familiarity with theater highly evident. She included a number of plot devices familiar from Shakespeare's romantic comedies: pairs of brothers and sisters in love with each other, a female character taking on the role of a male in pursuit of her love, and multiple weddings at the end to wrap everybody up tidily and happily. Oakleaf makes the point that Haywood's tale is unusual for its time because of the extent to which female characters are depicted as sexually passionate beings. I highly enjoyed the Introduction, really appreciated having the footnotes at the bottom of the page instead of tucked at the back of the book, and do not envision ever rereading the novel. Interesting experience but not a keeper½

Sentence structure was brutal. More than 3 comma's in a sentence and it gets confusing.

And what man has that many women losing their mind and falling in love at first sight. Please.

Lady Wombat says:

Other reviewers have commented that those who like Austen will like BETSY THOUGHTLESS. For me, what was so interesting was to think about how DIFFERENT this book is from Austen, particularly regarding gender roles and discussions of sex. Written in 1751, a time before domestic ideology became the dominant cultural code, BETSY THOUGHTLESS is far more open about discussing sex, pregnancy, adultery, and desire than Austen was -- Betsy's brother has a mistress; Betsy's friend gets pregnant and has a baby, and Betsy forgives her; Betsy's true love has casual sex with a woman after he is disappointed by Betsy's rudeness to him, and we're not supposed to think him contemptuous for such an action. Betsy herself worries at one point that if she lets her love escort her home, she won't be able to contain her desire for him. Fascinating!

Until I read Eliza Haywood, when I thought of early 18th century British literature, it was the dry and tedious stuff that came to mind. Yanno, the pamphlets by Locke or Rousseau, or even a dustier, ickier version of Dickens or Eliot. I wasn't fully aware of how the culture was so different prior to the Romantics and Queen Victoria, but if anything proves me wrong, it's Haywood.

Fantomina is the title work for this collection, and I remember it most clearly of the works. It is bawdy and hilarious and absolutely nothing like the stodgy Victorian novels of a hundred years later, or even the didactic stories from someone like Penelope Aubin.

It's from the Augustan Era of British literature, which is characterised by the development of the novel and satire, plus other things which can all be found at the helpful Wikipedia page. What this means for Fantomina is that it makes no efforts at providing a moral and is terribly funny.

The basic plot is that an aristocratic woman is jealous of the way lower class women are allowed to behave, especially the prostitutes. She'd like to be able to behave without the constrictions of her class and see what it's like, so she dresses like a prostitute with a mask and accidentally engages a client. Rather than reveal herself as an aristocrat, she gives the name of "Fantomina" and rents a room so that she need not break the appointment. She lets herself be talked into sex and enjoys it so much that she continues to get into costume and meet her new lover - until he grows weary of her.

Not one to just let him get away, Fantomina creates another persona and tricks Beauplaisir into sleeping with her - while still maintaining the previous one and the relationship it entailed. (That is to say, he cheats on Fantomina with Fantomina.) But men are fickle and this one is no exception, so goes the story, leading to Fantomina creating two additional personas and tricking her lover into staying with her twice more - again, while still keeping up with the other personas/relationships.

Eventually, Fantomina grows tired of the ruses and decides she's had enough of Beauplaisir, and what happens to finish the story is probably the best part of all.

Eliza Haywood swiftly became one of my favorite authors after reading Fantomina, and I'm looking forward to reading more of her writing.

Two satirical responses to Samuel Richardson's Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, the story of a pure young servant girl and her desperate attempts to guard both her honor and her place against the advances of her rakish master.

The Anti-Pamela, by Eliza Haywood, is a parallel story about another servant girl, Syrena, whose alleged purity is only a sham intended to either entice an aristocrat to marry her or to otherwise provide for her as a mistress or as the result of blackmail. Syrena and her mother work together, and sometimes at odds, to pull the wool over the eyes of Syrena's employers--it's basically the story of a mother-daughter con artist team, and is funny even when one hasn't read Pamela.

Henry Fielding's Shamela is an outright parody of Richardson's book. Fielding's edge is to illustrate the main character's ulterior motives while also taking a stab at Richardson's writing style, etc. This one is shorter, and I enjoyed it a little less than Anti-Pamela.

The Broadview edition (I think it's the only modern edition of Anti-Pamela that's been published yet) also includes some incredibly useful historical notes and explanatory footnotes with regard to the language used.