Books in the Chawton House Library: Women's Novels series in order

Contains the first ten books from the series.

Sarah Fielding was one of the most respected women authors of her generation and a key figure in the development of the novel. This edition revives The Countess of Dellwyn, the only one of Sarah Fielding¿s major works not previously available in a modern scholarly edition. The novel is satirical and didactic, taking as its targets fashionable life and modern marriage (and scandalous divorce) and narrated with acerbic wit by its anonymous third-person narrator.

Discipline, the second novel by the Scottish writer Mary Brunton (1778-1818), was published in 1814. While less well known than its predecessor Self-Control (1811), it is nonetheless equally deserving of a central place in the canon of Romantic-era fiction. Discipline¿s innovative psychological realism sets it apart from its contemporaries. Through the moral growth of its heroine Ellen Percy, it insists on women¿s self-determination and their ability to become rational agents in a world that treats them as objects merely of desire or contempt.

Marmaduke Herbert; or, the Fatal Error - a highly popular novel reprinted in German, French and American editions within a year of its publication. In addition, editorial apparatus put the novel in its literary and cultural context, discusses its contemporary reception, and provide explanatory notes on the text regarding people.

Dacre's novel was a bestseller, with two subsequent editions in two years. It tells the story of the wilful Cazire, whose passionate yet destructive adventures are recounted from the monastery where she now lives. The book will be of interest to those researching the Gothic, women's writing and the development of the nineteenth-century novel.

The Victim of Fancy was first published in December 1787 and, despite favourable reviews, has not been published since. Cook's new scholarly edition of this forgotten novel will be of paramount importance in allowing new insights into the form of the sentimental novel as it actually existed in the 1780s, and not as it is often perceived.

Born in Dublin into the Anglo-Irish gentry, Anna Maria Hall moved to London when she was fifteen where she became famous for her books, plays and travel writing. It was her book, Sketches of Irish Character (1829) which made her a household name. This modern critical edition is based on Hall's third, revised edition of 1844.

Published in 1763, The History of Lady Julia Mandeville was Frances Brooke's first and most successful novel. This modern critical edition contains an introductory essay on the text, endnotes and textual variants as well as appendices containing contemporary reviews and some of Brooke's other writing.

This modern critical edition contributes both to our knowledge of 18th Century radical writers and thinkers, and to our understanding of the trajectory of women¿s fiction and the Jacobin novel.

Some of the theories Genlis adopts in the education of the eponymous children have their roots in Rousseau's "Emile". However, Genlis herself suggested that Rousseau knew little of the practical education of children. This work is placed within the context of the late eighteenth-century debate on female education.

First published in 1759, this novel aims to promote the cause of the Magdalen House, a charity which sought to rehabilitate prostitutes by fitting them for a life of virtuous industry. It challenges long-standing prejudices against prostitutes by presenting them as victims of inadequate education, male libertinism and sexual double standards.

Thomas Holcroft's 1786 translation of Isabelle de Montolieu's novel is a textual encounter between a rather conventional Swiss woman and a British radical. Just as Montolieu did in her own translations, Holcroft reworked parts of the novel to make it more appealing to his intended audience.

Self-Control (1811) was a literary sensation, going into four editions in its first year. The first novelist to set her story against a strong Scottish background, Brunton set the scene for other writers such as Walter Scott. Jane Austen was also a fan, she read it at least twice, worrying that the work might foreshadow her own creations.

Eliza Haywood was one of the most popular and versatile writers of the eighteenth century. The two novellas in this edition - The Rash Resolve (1724) and Life's Progress (1748) - show her developing and adapting her ideas on the subject of passion and romance. Though superficially presented as cautionary tales, Haywood introduces a feminist slant.

This edition connects four female writers from two different countries, presenting the English translations of two of the most popular eighteenth-century French novels and a sequel to one of them.

Interest in the work of Eliza Haywood has increased greatly over the last two decades. Though much scholarship is focused on her 'scandalous' early career, this critical edition of The Invisible Spy (1755) adds to the canon of her later, more sophisticated work.

Often linked to the works of early Romanticism, Sophie Cottin's Malvina (1803) was a bestselling sentimental novel. First published in France, the English translation by Elizabeth Gunning - a prolific novelist in her own right - allowed Cottin's book to achieve success internationally. This is the first modern scholarly edition of Malvina.