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Open Research Online The Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs The life and prose works of Amelia Opie (1769-1853) Thesis How to cite: Jones, Clive (2001). The life and prose works of Amelia Opie (1769-1853). PhD thesis The Open University. For guidance on citations see FAQs. c 2001 The Author https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Version: Version of Record Link(s) to article on publisher’s website: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21954/ou.ro.0000e347 Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. oro.open.ac.uk 0 The Life and Prose Works of Amelia Opie (1769-1853) by Clive Jones, M. A., B.Ed. Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Department of Literature, Faculty of Arts Open University November 1,2001 In Two Volumes Volume One: the Thesis 0261657 9 1111111111111111111111111111111111 Abstract: 'Life andProse Works of Amelia Opie (1769-1853)) by Clive Jones,M. A., B.Ed. This thesisexamines the life andprose works of Amelia Opie. It exploresthe moral and social ideologyof the novelsand tales,setting them in the contextof Opie's own ideologicaldevelopment as shemoves from the radicalismof the 1790s,through a period of intellectualand religiousuncertainty to her conversionto Quakerismin 1825. It drawson a detailedanalysis of all Opie's extantwriting in prose,including a comprehensivesurvey of her letters. Biographicalcriticism hasbeen rather unfashionable in recent years,though this is beginningto change.The argumentput forward here is that only throughdetailed biographical case studies is it possibleto understandthe complexand shifting alignmentsand allegiancesof the period 1790to 1830. This hasoften beencharacterised as an era in which both societyand literaturewere highly polarised,with a clear division betweenradicals and conservatives.Careful analysis of Opie's life and work revealsthe difficulties involved in categorisingher in either camp, her and caseexemplifies the way in which this very limited, and limiting, perspectivecan misrepresentor oversimplify the position of individuals within this period. Opie's positionwas both complexat any given time, embodyingelements of both radicaland conservativethought, and developed and changedover time in responseto public and privateevents. Attempts to seeher as a radical, on the one hand,or conservative,on the other,are boundto distort the interpretationof her writings and the assessmentof her wider significanceas a writer. This thesistherefore aims to provide a new insight into the work of Amelia Opie andalso to representthe importanceand value of a biographicallysensitive criticism to a full understandingof both individual writers andthe periodsin which they work. An appendixto the thesis providesan annotatedregister of approximatelyfour hundredof her letters,giving detailsof their location. .ýe -*.. -*. - *.. The Life and Prose Works of Amelia Opie (1769 - 1853) Contents Volume I Introduction ................................................... .... 1. Norwich the First Writings I and ......................... 2. The Young Radical, 1794 1798 47 - ..................... 3. The LondonYears: Father Daughter, 1801 84 and ... 4. The London Years: Adeline Mowbray, 1805 131 ....... 5. The Prose the Middle Years, 1806 1824 201 of - ...... 6. The QuakerYears, 1825 After 283 and .................. Volume 11 Appendices A. Amelia Opie's Earningsfrom Longman's 339 ...... B. PublicationData of Opie's Works Published by Longman's 340 ....................................... C. Annotated Register of the Letters of Amelia Opie 341 ....................................... ........ Bibliography 432 ................................................... INTRODUCTION his thesison the life and prosewritings of Amelia Opie (1769- 1853)is the first full-length analysisof this writer sincethat of MargaretMacGregor, published in 1933.1Since that time, critical attitudeshave changed, further researchhas taken place and someof Opie's works havebeen brought back into print in modem,scholarly editions.These factors make a re-assessmentof Opie's work very timely. The presentstudy is basedon all her extantwritings, including, for the first time, a comprehensivesurvey of somefour hundredletters which havesurvived, as well as excerptsfrom herjoumal, now lost, but which havebeen recorded by previousbiographers. Opie's life maybe seento fall into five phases.The first was that of her childhoodand youth, passedin her native city of Norwich, which sawthe publicationof her first tale, performanceof at leastone play and the productionof someverse. This led to a secondphase, that of political radicalismspanning the years1794 to 1798,in both Norwich and London, 1 Margaret Eliot MacGregor, 'Amelia Alderson Opie, Worldling and Friend', Smith College Studies in Modem Languages, 14 (1933), 3-127. ii whenshe contributed to the pro-revolutionaryperiodical TheCabinet, attendedthe TreasonTrials, probablyaddressed a largepolitical meeting andbecame part of a radicalclique which alsocomprised William Godwin,Thomas Holcroft andElizabeth Inchbald. 2 Following her marriageto the portraitistJohn Opie camea decadeof life in fashionable Londoncircles andthis period sawher establishmentas a writer of an extremely popular sentimental tale Father and Daughter (180 1), two volumes of verse, and the novel Adefine Mowbray (1805), often perceived as a roman6 clif becauseof her closeassociation with William Godwin. After the prematuredeath of her husband,Opie returnedto Norwich. This middle period sawthe productionof severalshorter tales as sheexploited the popularityof her earlier work. The final phaseemphasised her pre- occupationwith religiousmatters, and the year 1825,when shewas admittedto the Societyof Friends,forms a convenientwatershed to separatethese two later periodsof her life. This thesisfollows a chronologicalstructure based on thesefive phases,identifying and discussingthe changesin her life and her writing as they occur. This biographicalapproach has been assisted by a scrutiny of all of Opie's extantletters, located in over forty archival sources,and broughttogether for the first time in an annotatedregister appended to the thesis. The lettersnot only form a counterpointto her publishedworks, but also modulateamong themselves so that four distinct but overlapping 2 Tusculan Society, Yhe Cabinet, 3 vols. (Norwich: J.March, 1795) iii groupsbecome discemable: the lettersof political import, written to such peopleas RobertSouthey, Sir JamesMackintosh and Lord Brougham; thoseof religiousmatters, written to her Quakerfriends such as Joseph JohnGurney and Elizabeth Fry; thosepresenting the affairs of peopleof ton, addressedto suchpeople as Lady Charlevilleand Lady Boileau; and thosewhich seemto havebeen inspired by deepfriendship or family connections,such as thoseto SusannahTaylor, William Hayley and her cousinsEliza Aldersonand Henry Briggs. Amelia Opie wasadept at self-constructionand the imagesof herselfthat shepresents are sometimescontradictory. The plain Friend doesnot sit easilywith the womanof worldly pleasures,nor the radicalof the 1790swith the conservativemoralist of her later years. These contradictions,sometimes startlingly revealedin her letters,refreshingly remind us of the complexityof humanexperience and the ideological plurality of any age. That critics haveattempted to apply suchreductive labelsas 'radical' or 'conservative'in a rigid and all-excludingfashion to a writer whosework spannedsuch a rangeas Opie's is curiousas well as clearly unhelpful. The knots in which somecritics havemanaged to tie themselvesin their examinationof aspectsof AdefineMowbray, for example,surely indicate the impossibility of sustainingsuch an unwieldy critical apparatus.This thesisprovides a lengthyreview and analysisof AdefineMowbray as a totality, pointing out the inadequaciesof suchblunt critical instrumentsin dealingwith this complexnovel, and the cul-de-sac IV consequencesof a too-easyidentification of its protagonistswith William Godwin andMary Wollstonecraft. Additionally, this view of Adeline Mowbray as a roman i clif fatally confusesthe way in which this intriguing novel is read.No corroborativewritten evidenceby Opie suggestssuch a reading,although the possibilityof suchan interpretationis there.If the novel is to be read in this way, then a more workableapproach is suggestedwhich, in my view, leads to more helpful and appropriate conclusions. The thesisalso provides the opportunityfor full-length discussion of otherworks by Opie which are worthy of more critical interestthan they presentlyenjoy. Valentine'sEve (1816),for example,sets up some intriguing tensionsbetween artisan virtues and aristocraticcorruption. Similarly, the discussionof Opie's first novel, TheDangers of Coquetry (1790)is the first critical essayto be written on this work. (Evidencein a letter enablesthis tale, publishedanonymously, to be firmly attributedto Opie.) Her most popularnovel, Father and Daughter(180 1) hasrecently beenthe subjectof an interestingessay by EleanorT Y.3 This is welcome interestevidence of a renewedinterest in a writer too often dismissedas simply 'grimly conservative 4 3 SeeEleanor Ty, Empoweringthe Feminine (Toronto: University of TorontoPress, 1998),pp. 133 - 144. 4 ClaudiaJohnson, Jane Austen, Women, Politics and theNovel (Chicago:University of ChicagoPress, 1988), p. 121.