Celestina (Broadview Editions) - Softcover

"The publication of Charlotte Smith's Celestina, expertly edited by Loraine Fletcher, marks an important addition to the library of those of us interested in Romantic women writers, the sentimental novel, or the eighteenth-century novel. The appendices provide materials that allow readers to assess the reception and influence of the novel, the political context, and Smith's biography. With an astute and wide-ranging introduction that helpfully places the novel in the political, literary, and cultural contexts of its day, this volume is an extremely valuable addition to the impressive and growing list offered by Broadview Press." - Diane Long Hoeveler, Marquette University

Published here for the first time in a modern edition, Charlotte Smith's third novel is both rivetingly plotted and unique for its time in its powerful depiction of a gifted Romantic woman poet. The novel's heroine, Celestina, abandoned as a child in a French convent, becomes an independent, witty, and accomplished elegiac poet who, in a reversal of the usual pattern of the courtship novel, acts as a mentor to several men in her life. Written at the beginning of the French Revolution, Smith's novel depicts characters challenging both corrupt authority and conventional morality, exemplifying her hope that English society was on the verge of a great change for the better. This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction and primary source material relating to the novel's reception, its political contexts (writings by Reverend Richard Price, Edmund Burke, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Thomas Paine), and the author's life.