The Fenwick Letters Volume 1

"The extraordinary life of the protean Eliza Fenwick, novelist, children’s writer, shopkeeper, school teacher, business woman, emigrant, mother and grandmother, is caught in these vivid candid letters written from the 1790s to the 1830s. They depict an agitated progress through agitated times: with family to support, the ever resilient Fenwick combats loss and poverty by modifying style and opinions to suit shifting times. A radical in the London of Godwin and Wollstonecraft, an ambivalent observer in slave-owning Barbados, and a conservative reactionary in colonial Canada, she charms, surprises, disturbs and appeals by turns within this rich, engrossing book." - Janet Todd, author of Living with Jane Austen and Jane Austen and Shelley in the Garden (2021)

Caribbean literary historians will welcome this meticulous reassembly and editing of Volume 1 of the letters written between Eliza Fenwick, her daughter Eliza Ann and her friend Mary Hays,1797 to 1821. This period covers the transformation of a promising British author and wife from her radical and progressive circle in the UK to that of a colonial governess, schoolteacher, and single mother determined to support her family despite a peripatetic life. [. . .] The letters from Barbados (1814-1821) are filled with excitement, tragedy (Orlando dies of yellow fever) and danger (Bussa's slave rebellion in 1816 and the hurricane of 1819)." - Evelyn O'Callaghan, author of Women Writing the West Indies 1804–1939: 'A Hot Place, Belonging to Us' (2004)

The eloquent letters of Eliza Fenwick, a talented author and teacher in the circle of Godwin, voice her struggle to secure independence for herself and her two children from her indebted alcoholic husband. [. . .] Here, Paul's extensive introductory comments and notes make allusions in the Fenwick family letters accessible to the general reader, while highlighting passages of special interest to students of Romantic literature and politics" - Margaret Higonnet, author of Nineteenth-Century British Women Poets (1996)