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Courting Disaster : Women, Romance, And Novels In Eighteenth And Nineteenth Century Britain, Beth J. Massie

Honors Theses

Society always fears that something is corrupting its youth and therefore dooming the future. In the late eighteenth century, British High Society believed that the sentimental and overly dramatic courtship novel was adversely affecting the actions of marriageable young women. In response to these fears, women writers of the early nineteenth century produced literature designed to guide young women safely and happily through the steps of courtship and marriage. The impact of British society's changing views on courtship and marriage combined with the fears raised by the courtship novel in the minds of older society transformed the courtship novel of …