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Ask a reasonably well-informed person for a list of famous 18th century English-language authors, and they are likely to respond with names like Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, or Samuel Johnson. Likely absent from such a list will be Charlotte Lennox, yet in her day her standing as a writer was equal to many of them. Though best known today as the author of the 1752 novel The Female Quixote, her output consisted of a range of poetry, prose, and criticism, all of which won her an admiring audience. One of the many merits of Susan Carlile's biography of Lennox is that she situates her subject squarely within the literary world of her time, fully detailing both her prominence and her literary impact among her contemporaries.

 

Lennox's journey to that point was a difficult one. The daughter of a Scottish army officer, Lennox was born Charlotte Ramsay in Gibraltar, where she lived until her father's appointment as lieutenant governor of the colony of New York. Though she was accepted in England as a noblewoman's companion and prepared for a position at court, Charlotte's life changed with her marriage to her husband Alexander Lennox, forcing her to look for a livelihood. After an unsuccessful period as an actress Lennox turned to writing, with her novels and translations serving as her family's primary means of financial support. As Carlile demonstrates, though, earning a living from one's pen at that time was no small challenge even for the most successful authors, and despite her literary accomplishments Lennox lived a financially challenging existence until her death as a pensioner in 1804.

 

Among the challenges Carlile faces in recounting Lennox's life is the paucity of surviving sources about it. To overcome this she draws not just upon Lennox's novels for the insights they provide, but the information available about the times in which she lived, which she weaves into her narrative with authority and understanding. In doing so, Carlile not only highlights the many obstacles Lennox faced throughout her long literary career but how notable her success was in overcoming them. It also makes her book more than just a biography of an accomplished author and an exploration of her many writings but a nuanced examination of the 18th century literary world. The result is a first-rate work of scholarship that should be read not only by people interested in this remarkable woman but by everyone interested in the literature of the era and the world of the authors who produced it.