Although students of Restoration and Augustan literature are aware that letters were used as a fictional device before Richardson's Pamela appeared, the minor fiction of these periods has been little studied. The authors of these "novels" were mostly unknown and industrious hacks; the books are now excessively rare, found only in the largest libraries; and their frequently poor quality and the stilted conventions which dominated them make them of little interest except to the specialist.

In the period 1660-1740 there appeared in England nearly 200 works, original, translated, and revived, in which letters figured largely or entirely as the narrative medium; many of these passed through numerous editions. Moreover, the ill-paid authors were often not content with merely chopping a narrative into sections arbitrarily called "letters," but showed an appreciation of the technical adventages of a framework of correspondence which would have done credit to Richardson.¹ Indeed, the brevity and informality of many of these imitated correspondences, the concentration on letters rather than on novel, gave them an air of realism which Richardson, with his incredibly prolix épistoliers, was unable to maintain. The writers frequently placed an emphasis on "sensibility" and the minute analysis of the emotions which, though briefly sustained, was little inferior to that in the works which made Lady Mary Wortley Montagu weep like a chambermaid.

The "novel" reproduced here is principally remarkable not for beaux sentiments, the technical manipulation of correspondence, or tearing a passion to tatters (many of its predecessors had accomplished one or more of these feats much better);² but for its atmosphere of British middle-class realism, its characterization, its breezy humor, and its conduct of a plot that is simple, credible, and carefully omits romantic fripperies.³ Although it retains the high-flown names of worn-out tradition, "Artander" and "Berina" are obviously Thomas and Jane. And this realism of furniture, food, and the difficulties of day-to-day life is as rare as a sense of humor in the early English novel. This refreshing innovation—a pair of lovers who manage to be witty instead of passionate while conveying the impression that they entertain tender feelings—together with her eye for physical detail, gives Mrs. Davys a claim to be a pioneer in the approach to fiction improved by Fanny Burney and perfected by Jane Austen.

Little is known of Mrs. Mary Davys (1674-1732),⁴ but in her day she was nearly unique in being a female author of unblemished reputation. The widow of the Reverend Peter Davys, a friend of Swift, she came to England from Ireland after her husband's death in 1698. She wrote for a living (her novel The Reform'd Coquet and her play The Northern Heiress had some success) and established a coffee-house in Cambridge, where she had some acquaintance in intellectual circles. The Familiar Letters appeared in her Works of 1725, which she published by subscription, indicating a fair expectation of success in the university town. She shows the influence of Congreve and the Spectator, and all her work shows a talent which, while slight, is marked by dry wit, realism, satire, and careful avoidance of immorality and old-fashioned romantic absurdity. A remark from her preface shows how far author and public had advanced toward Richardson's sobriety:

… if [censurers] find any thing there offensive either to God or Man, any thing either to shock their Morals or their Modesty, 'tis then time enough to blame. And let them further consider, that a Woman left to her own Endeavours for Twenty-seven Years together, may well be allow'd to catch at any Opportunity for that Bread, which they that condemn her would very probably deny to give her.⁵

Familiar Letters, although it shows that epistolary fiction of considerable merit had been produced long before Pamela, fails to convey a notion of the variety and importance of the works in that field, or of their significance to the history of English prose fiction and of the development of taste. It will be seen from the bibliography appended to this introduction that they fall into three groups, receiving their impetus from popular translations from the French. The enormously popular Lettres Portugaises gave rise to imitations which analyzed the emotions of lovers at length and in detail, sometimes with high-flown heroics, sometimes realistically—primitive "psychological" novels. Scandal-chronicles and journey-narratives explored humor and descriptive technique, while epistolary sequences of varying length sometimes developed great skill in the use of letters in plotting.

This "no-man's-land" in the history of English fiction offers valuable material for the student. These haphazardly-produced works showed a real concern with such problems as point of view, a primitive "stream-of-consciousness" technique, and subjective narration as opposed to the unadorned tale. The public response to them, seen in prefaces, advertisements, and journalistic comment, suggests that the cult of sensibility, so pronounced after Richardson, had a vigorous existence long before. The minor fiction of this period deserves more attention than it has had; and its serious study may throw new light on the whole literary history of the time, besides uncovering important "missing links" in the evolution of English fiction.…

Notes

¹ For an excellent and detailed study of Richardson's technique, see Alan D. McKillop, "Epistolary Technique in Richardson's Novels," Rice Institute Pamphlet, XXXVIII (1951), 36-54.

² See, for example, Nos. 25, 36, 43, 70, 94, 151, 153, and 175 in the bibliography which follows.

³ Mrs. Davys, in the preface to her Works, indicates her great concern with these points in plotting.

⁴ Our knowledge comes mainly from Swift's correspondence and from incidental remarks in her works; but see also the (inaccurate) entry in DNB.

⁵Works (2 vols., 1725), II, viii.