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Something New (Broadview Literary Texts)

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Feminist epistolary novel with typical subplots of the period.

Something New (Broadview Literary Texts)
Anne Plumtree
Manufacturer: Broadview Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

Something New explores sexual roles and questions with subtlety and astonishingly modern insight the prevailing "rights" of men over women, their respective attitudes towards one another, and the ideology of the "beauty myth" is challenged in this 1801 publication.

"Plumptre's creation of a physically unattractive heroine is indeed 'something new.' Her innovation in this epistolary novel also extends beyond the characterization of Olivia to the models of masculinity, sentimental and satiric, so tellingly grouped around her…. McLeod's skillful edition includes a thought-provoking compendium of 18th-century views of beauty and ugliness." --Jennifer Thorn, Duke University

Appendices include materials on eighteenth-century views of beauty and ugliness.

Customer Reviews:

Feminist epistolary novel with typical subplots of the period........1998-04-08

This epistolary novel tells the tale of how twoinsensitive, superficial men reform themselves under the influence of the extremely ugly heiressOlivia Campbell and her beautiful friend. Plot does indeed avoid the cliched ending, but it isn'tenough to save the story from some tedium, especially if you're familiar with common themes of the time. Strong echoes of Richardson's classic novel,Clarissa, run throughthe book, but Plumtree's novel fails to rise to the moral glory and sadistic depths that Richardson hits. Onthe other hand, it isn't a million words long either ... The use of cliched subplots (for 1801) was one of the book's biggest weaknesses: the ghost that isn't a ghost; the persecuted, beautiful cottager; the mysteriousorphan, the contrast of the faithful old retainer and the money-grubbing, self-aggrandizing,ladder-climbing modern servant, etc. If these plots aren't familiar to you, you will enjoy this introduction to some of the common plots of the period.

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