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A LADY NOVELIST AND THE LATE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BOOK TRADE: CHARLOTTE SMITH’S LETTERS TO PUBLISHER THOMAS CADELL, SR., 1786-94 Emily Marie Brewer A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature. Chapel Hill 2013 Approved by: Jeanne Moskal Lloyd Kramer John McGowan Tom ReinerT Ruth Salvaggio ABSTRACT EMILY MARIE BREWER: A Lady Novelist and the Late Eighteenth-Century Book Trade: Charlotte Smith’s Letters to Publisher Thomas Cadell, Sr., 1786-94 (Under the direction of Jeanne Moskal) As a struggling single mother separated from her dissolute husband, the poet Charlotte Smith (1749-1806) began writing novels as a way to make money for her family. The exploding book market of late eighteenth-century Britain teemed with booksellers and publishers—some anxious to hustle works to press, some seeking quality works to build their reputation—and Smith entered this male-centric realm with naïveté, shaky confidence, and growing desperation. Guided by a literary mentor to the reputable London publishing firm of Thomas Cadell, Sr., Smith entered a business relationship that would see her through the publication and later editions of two translated novels, three original novels, the two-volume poem The Emigrants, and a subscription and an expanded edition of her celebrated poetry and essay collection, Elegiac Sonnets. Most of the letters Smith wrote to Cadell have never been published; the majority of them were discovered just as Judith Phillips Stanton was taking her Collected Letters of Charlotte Smith (2003) to press. This scholarly edition includes every known letter that Smith wrote to Cadell before his retirement, when his son and assistant redubbed it Cadell & Davies. Compiled from university, public, and private libraries in Britain, the U.S., and New Zealand, these annotated letters offer an intimate portrait of Smith as entrepreneurial ii author, desperate businesswoman, and careworn single mother of nine children in an era of revolutionary (and counter-revolutionary) fervor, Empire building, and abolitionism. iii To the memory of Howard R. Guest and to Ed Wilson, my first guide to the Romantic Period and treasured friend; Dorothy Wehrle Guest Dixon, my Anglo- and bibliophile grandmother and penpal; Charles Brewer, my father, who taught me to look at the details; Patrick McDonough, my husband, whose love and support made it possible; and Dylan, my beloved son, who has enriched my life beyond expression. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project is the culmination of a long graduate school career, through which I have been supported, buoyed, and encouraged by mentors, friends, and family. As an undergraduate English major at Wake Forest, I had the great privilege to study British Romanticism with Edwin G. Wilson. He guided his undergraduates on a journey of the imagination. We peered into Wordsworth’s own dorm room at King’s College—feeling a kinship with the wine-drunk young poet-to-be as he toasted the memory of Milton—and we gazed with him at the daffodils. We did not yet know what it was to be old, but Wordsworth, as Dr. Wilson taught him, instructed us to live life fully enough to create memories that could replenish us later. We revisited our own memories of childhood innocence through Blake and were enchanted by that poet’s vision of his brother’s soul ascending to heaven and “clapping its hands for joy”—all the while baffled by his visionary poetry. We met Christabel and the ancient mariner and wondered how Coleridge might have ended “Kubla Khan” (deciding, though, that the fragment is best as is). We turned Keats’s urn in our hands and soared with the song of his nightingale. I was so powerfully drawn to the Romantic poets—and to Wordsworth, in particular—that I saved up for and finally enrolled in the two-week Wordsworth Summer Conference in Grasmere in 2000. When I returned to Wake Forest to pursue my MA in English, I fell under the sway of the Anglo-Saxon poets and the medieval romances and v entered UNC in 2003 as a medievalist. It did not take long for me to return to my first real home in literature. Therefore, I thank Ed Wilson for being the pied piper who led me down this path, and for his abiding mentorship, encouragement, and friendship all of these years. From Gillian Overing and Gale Sigal at Wake Forest, I learned scholarly discipline. Although I did not become a medievalist, I have used the skills I learned in their classes in all of my doctoral studies. I owe a tremendous debt to my director, Jeanne Moskal, who has modeled thoughtful teaching, exacting editorship, and compassionate mentorship these past nine years. She evidently saw promise in me from the time I enrolled in her Mary Shelley seminar in 2004, and my work with her in various capacities since, as a graduate assistant, as her assistant editor at the Keats-Shelley Journal, and as a dissertation student, has enriched me personally and professionally. It was she who introduced me to Charlotte Smith and to the women writers of the Romantic period, she who journeyed with me on the Napoleonic War-era ships of my original dissertation project, and she who pointed a path to finishing the degree when those ships were lodged in shoals. Jeanne believed I would be the right person for this project and she connected me with Judith Stanton. Alongside Ed Wilson, Gillian Overing, Gale Sigal, and Jeanne Moskal, Judith Stanton has a fixed place in the pantheon my graduate school career. As the Introduction to this project elucidates, she played the most critical role in this dissertation project. She generously shared of her time, expertise, resources—and, most crucially, the letters themselves—and provided support and encouragement vi along the way. Judith has incredible perspicacity, and from her I learned not just how to begin this project, but how to feel my way into it. Her thoughtful, wise, and comprehensive feedback on an earlier draft of this project demonstrated her twenty-five years’ experience with Charlotte Smith’s correspondence, and Charlotte Smith—and I—owe her an enormous debt. That I had the opportunity to complete my doctorate I owe to the support and love of my husband, Patrick McDonough. After Dylan was born, and with the challenges of new motherhood, my dream of getting my Ph.D. started fading, but Patrick stoked the flame for me until I was ready to reclaim it for myself, and then he assumed additional financial, household, and childcare responsibilities to see it through. We both worked extraordinarily hard to keep my enhanced work schedule from affecting Dylan, and as our child is now a happy, well-adjusted, and extremely verbal new three-year-old, I think we succeeded. I wish also to acknowledge the influence of my grandmother, Dorothy Wehrle Guest Dixon, who has always shared her own passion for books and reading with me. On visits to her in Charleston, WV, I would spend hours perusing the many books on her shelves and snuggle in her lap as she read Uncle Noggleman stories. One of the most memorable Christmas gifts I ever received was a cassette tape she sent of her and my grandfather, Howard Guest, reading stories. In 2000, not long after he died, I invited her to meet me in England to attend the Wordsworth Summer Conference. To my delight, she signed on, expanded the itinerary, and invited my parents and cousin to join us for the pre-Conference touring. The month we spent together there cemented the special connection we’d always shared. Since that time, vii we have regularly exchanged written letters. In the era of instantaneous communication, I treasure these letters more than any others, and as I edited an edition of hand-written letters, I have thought about those that I write and receive in new ways. My parents, Charles and Susan Brewer, have shared their own gifts with me—an attention to detail, a curiosity about the world, and an understanding of the value of education—and for all of those things I am enormously grateful. For their camaraderie during my graduate school career, I wish to thank in particular Marc Cohen—a true friend and bridge-builder—, Sarah Hallenbeck, Lauren Cameron, Laura Smith Gillis, and Sarah Shaw, and also Cindy Current, Al Miller, Jennifer Larson, Sarah Lindsay, Erin Branch, Leslie Davison, Cheryl Thayer, Amanda Page, and Sarah Ficke. This dissertation was written with a toddler boy afoot, and I thank the following long-time friends for keeping me grounded as a scholar-mother: Melissa Magee-Kakouras, Heather Tipton, Julie Wilson, Megan Jarrell, and Erin Carrier. A special thank you goes to those caregivers whose loving attention to Dylan allowed me to mentally escape into the world of eighteenth- century letters: Christy Smith, Elysse Thebner, Becca Egner, Sehwa Oh, and Sadie Bauer. This project has benefited from the probing questions and nudges of my dissertation committee members. They helped me to see the larger importance of this work, and for their careful reading and response, I thank Lloyd Kramer of the History Department, and, in addition to Jeanne Moskal, Ruth Salvaggio, John McGowan, and Tom Reinert of the English Department. viii A number of librarians and archivists have answered questions and provided assistance at various junctures along the way. I wish to thank especially Tommy Nixon at UNC, and also Libby Chenault and Robert Dalton; Andrew Bennett at the East Sussex Record Office; Ellen Doon at The Beineke; Mary Robertson at The Huntington; and Anthony Tedeschi at the Dunedin Public Library in Dunedin, NZ.

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