Olinda's Adventures: or the Amours of a Young Lady

  Produced by Chris Curnow, Eleni Christofaki, Joseph Cooperand the Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttps://www.pgdp.net

  Transcriber's Notes:

  This book contains inconsistent punctuation and various misspellingswhich have been retained as they appear in the original. An Errata Listwith unresolved printer errors can be found at the end of the book.Superscripts are preceded by the [^] sign and enclosed in braces if morethan one letter is in superscript. The illustration at page 136 wasplaced at the end of the section so as not to disrupt the text.

  Mark up: _italics_ =bold=

  THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY

  OLINDA'S ADVENTURES:

  Or the Amours of a Young Lady

  (1718)

  _Introduction by_ ROBERT ADAMS DAY

  PUBLICATION NUMBER 138

  WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY

  UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES

  1969

  GENERAL EDITORS

  William E. Conway, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_

  George Robert Guffey, _University of California, Los Angeles_

  Maximillian E. Novak, _University of California, Los Angeles_

  ASSOCIATE EDITOR

  David S. Rodes, _University of California, Los Angeles_

  ADVISORY EDITORS

  Richard C. Boys, _University of Michigan_

  James L. Clifford, _Columbia University_

  Ralph Cohen, _University of Virginia_

  Vinton A. Dearing, _University of California, Los Angeles_

  Arthur Friedman, _University of Chicago_

  Louis A. Landa, _Princeton University_

  Earl Miner, _University of California, Los Angeles_

  Samuel H. Monk, _University of Minnesota_

  Everett T. Moore, _University of California, Los Angeles_

  Lawrence Clark Powell, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_

  James Sutherland, _University College, London_

  H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., _University of California, Los Angeles_

  Robert Vosper, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_

  CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

  Edna C. Davis, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_

  EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

  Mary Kerbret, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_

  INTRODUCTION

  A standard modern history of the English novel speaks of "the appearanceof the novel round about 1700. Nothing that preceded it in the way ofprose fiction can explain it."[1] Though today many scholars wouldassert that "nothing" is too strong a term, just how much of theoriginal fiction written under the later Stuarts could "explain" Defoeand Richardson? Most late seventeenth-century novels, it is true, arerogue biographies, scandal-chronicles, translations and imitations ofFrench _nouvelles_, or short sensational romances of love, intrigue, andadventure with fantastic plots and wooden characters. Only occasionallywas a tale published which showed that it was not examples of thenovelist's craft that were wanting to inspire the achievement of aDefoe, but rather the sustained application of that craft over hundredsof pages by the unique combination of talents of a Defoe himself.

  Such a novel is _Olinda's Adventures_, a brief epistolary narrative of1693, a minor but convincing demonstration of the theory that a literaryform such as the novel develops irregularly, by fits and starts, and ofthe truism that a superior mind can produce superior results with themost seemingly ungrateful materials. Of Defoe, _Olinda's Adventures_must appear a modest precursor indeed; but measured, as arealistic-domestic novel, against the English fiction of its day, it issurprisingly mature; and if we believe the bookseller and assign itsauthorship to a girl of fourteen, we must look to the juvenilia of JaneAusten for the first comparable phenomenon.

  _Olinda's Adventures_ seems to owe what success it had entirely to thebookseller Samuel Briscoe. It appeared in 1693 in the first volume ofhis epistolary miscellany _Letters of Love and Gallantry and SeveralOther Subjects_. _All Written by Ladies_, the second volume following in1694.[2] It may have been the nucleus of the collection, however, sinceit begins the volume, and since Briscoe states in "The Bookseller to theReader" (sig. A2) that various ladies, hearing that he was going toprint Olinda's letters, have sent in amorous correspondence of theirown--a remark that could indicate some previous circulation inmanuscript. Another edition (or issue) of the miscellany, with aslightly altered title, was advertised in 1697, but no copy of this isrecorded.[3] Nothing further is heard of _Olinda_ for some years, butmeanwhile Briscoe became something of a specialist in popular epistolarymiscellanies, perhaps because he was a principal employer of Tom Brown,much of whose output consisted of original and translated "familiarletters." In 1718 Briscoe assembled a two-volume epistolary collectionwith the title _Familiar Letters of Love, Gallantry and SeveralOccasions_; this collection was apparently made up of the best and mostpopular items in his miscellanies of the past twenty-five years.[4] Here_Olinda_ appears in much more impressive company than the anonymous"ladies," for the collection includes the first letter of Heloise toAbelard (said to be translated by L'Estrange) with actual correspondenceand epistolary fiction by Butler, Mrs. Behn, Dennis, Otway, Etherege,Dryden, Tom Brown, Mrs. Mary Manley, Farquhar, Mrs. Centlivre, and otherwits. Another edition (or issue) was advertised for W. Chetwood in 1720;and if the edition of 1724 ("Corrected. With Additions") is really thesixth, as Briscoe's title-page states, _Olinda_ must have reached arespectable number of readers.

  _Olinda_ enjoyed another distinction, nearly unique for English popularfiction before 1700. While by the middle of the eighteenth centurynovel-readers in France were reveling in the adventures of the Englishepigones of Pamela and Clarissa, defending their virtue or exhibitingtheir sensibility in translation, the current of literary influencebefore Defoe ran overwhelmingly in the opposite direction. _Olinda_anticipated the Miss Sally Sampsons of sixty years later by appearing in1695 in a French translation as _Les Amours d'une belle Angloise: ou lavie et les avantures de la jeune Olinde: Ecrites par Elle mesme en formede lettres a un Chevalier de ses amis_.[5] Whether merit or mere chanceaccounted for this unusual occurrence it is impossible to say; thetranslation of _Olinda_ is a faithful one, though the text is at timesexpanded by the insertion of poems into Olinda's letters, with briefinterpolated passages which rather awkwardly account for their presence.Curiously, the volume closes with a list of books printed for Briscoe,indicating either that the French translator would do anything to fillup space, or that Briscoe may have been exploring the possibilities of aFrench market for his wares.

  While _Olinda_ was ascribed merely to an anonymous "young lady" in thefirst edition, the editions of 1718 and 1724 gave it to "Mrs. Trotter."This lady, who since 1707 had been the wife of the Reverend PatrickCockburn, a Suffolk curate, was then living in relative obscurity (herhusband, having lost his living at the accession of George I, wasprecariously supporting his family by teaching), though she had enjoyeda certain literary success in King William's time and would later beheard from as a "learned lady" and writer on ethics. The fact that hermaiden name was used, though not likely in 1718 to add very much lusterto Briscoe's collection, and the similarities between the heroine'ssituation and Mrs. Trotter's own early life (to be discussed later) makeBriscoe's attribution seem worthy of acceptance. It is true that if Mrs.Trotter wrote _Olinda_ she did it at fourteen. But she had been a childof astonishing precocity; she had produced a successful blank-versetragedy at sixteen, and both Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Jane Austenwere to perform similar novelistic feats (to say nothing of DaisyAshford).

  Catherine Trotter (1679-1749)[6] was the daughter of David Trotter, a
naval commander who died on a voyage in 1683, and Sarah Bellenden (orBallenden), whose connections with the Maitland and Drummond familiesseem to have helped support her and her daughter in genteel povertyuntil she gained a pension of L20 per year under Queen Anne; BishopBurnet was also her friend and patron. Catherine, a child prodigy,learned Latin and logic, and is said to have taught herself French; sheextemporized verses in childhood, and at fourteen composed a poem on Mr.Bevil Higgons's recovery from the smallpox which is no worse than many"Pindarics" of the period. In 1695, however, Catherine Trotterestablished herself as a female wit with the impressive success of hertragedy _Agnes de Castro_, adapted from Mrs. Behn's retelling of anepisode from Portuguese history. It was produced at the Theatre Royal inDrury Lane in December, with a prologue by Wycherley and with Mr. andMrs. Verbruggen and Colley Cibber in the cast. _The Fatal Friendship_, atragedy produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1698, had a moderatesuccess; two later plays did not. But Mrs. Trotter gained theacquaintance of Congreve, Dryden, and Farquhar, and was well enoughknown to be lampooned in _The Female Wits_ (1704; acted 1696) along withMrs. Pix and Mrs. Manley. In 1702 she turned to more serious writing,and her _Defence of the Essay of Humane Understanding_ and othertreatises defending Locke's theories against the charge of materialismwere impressive enough to earn her a flattering letter from Lockehimself; she also corresponded with Leibniz, who analyzed her theoriesat some length. _The History of the Works of the Learned_ printed anessay of hers on moral obligation in 1743, and in 1747 Warburtoncontributed a preface to one of her treatises.

  If we are willing to admit that _Olinda_ is Mrs. Trotter's work, itsvirtues may be explained in part by seeing it as romanticizedautobiography. Olinda, like Mrs. Trotter, is a wit and something of abeauty in adolescence, a fatherless child living with a prudent motherwho is anxious to marry her off advantageously, and a solicitor offavors from noble or wealthy connections. Of the details of hercharacter and circumstances at this time, however, no information iscertain, and we must rely upon two presumably biased contemporaryportraits. Mrs. Trotter gets off lightly in _The Female Wits_; she isrepresented (in "Calista," a small role) as being somewhat catty andpretentious, vain of her attainments in Latin and Greek (she has readAristotle in the original, she says), but her moral character is nottouched upon.[7] Another account of her early life, in Mrs. Manley'sfictionalized autobiography and scandal-chronicle, _The Adventures ofRivella_ (1714), may be entirely unreliable; but its author wascertainly well acquainted with Mrs. Trotter, and what she says of herlife in the 1690's, what is narrated in _Olinda_, and what Mrs.Trotter's scholarly memoirist Thomas Birch relates are similar inoutline, similar enough so that we may speculate that the same set offacts has been "improved" in _Olinda_, perhaps maliciously distorted in_Rivella_. Cleander, the Platonic friend of the novel, Orontes, thekidnapped bridegroom, and Cloridon, the inconveniently married noblelover, appear to be three aspects of the same person; for Mrs. Manleytells at length (pp. 64-71) of "Calista's" relationship with "Cleander"(identified in the "key" to _Rivella_ as Mrs. Trotter and Mr. Tilly).[8]John Tilly, the deputy warden of the Fleet prison, whose mistress Mrs.Manley became and remained until 1702, first met her, she says, throughMrs. Trotter, who sought her aid in interceding with her cousin JohnManley, appointed chairman of a committee to look into allegedmisdemeanors of Tilly as prison administrator. Mrs. Trotter, says Mrs.Manley, was a prude in public, not so in private; she was the first,"Cleander" said, who ever made him unfaithful to his wife. Mrs. Manleygoes on, with a tantalizing lack of clarity (pp. 101-102):

  [Calista's] Mother being in Misfortunes and indebted to him, she had offered her Daughter's Security, he took it, and moreover the Blessing of one Night's Lodging, which he never paid her back again.... [Calista] had given herself Airs about not visiting _Rivella_, now she was made the Town-Talk by her Scandalous Intreague with _Cleander_.

  Whatever the truth about Mrs. Trotter's adolescent amours may have been,or whether they have any connection with Olinda's fictional ones, mustremain a matter for speculation; but the artistic merits of _Olinda_ arein no such doubt. Although technically it may be called an epistolarynovel, its author is no Richardson in marshalling the strategies of theepistolary technique. Nevertheless, although it is actually a fictionalautobiography divided somewhat arbitrarily into "letters," thepostponement of the letter to Cloridon until the end, the introductionof what might be called a subplot as Olinda tries to promote Cleander'scourtship of Ambrisia and notes its progress, the breaking off of theletters at moments of (mild) suspense, the bringing up of the action toan uncompleted present, all these show an awareness of fictionalmechanics that is far from elementary. Indeed, a contemporary criticmight go so far as to see in the novel's conclusion an anticipation ofthe "open-ended" realism of plotting so much applauded at present; forthough Orontes has been got out of the way, Olinda has not yet beenrewarded with Cloridon's hand by a similarly happy turn of fate, andmust patiently await the demise of his inconvenient wife as anyoneoutside of melodrama might have to do. The contretemps andmisunderstandings, the trick played on Olinda with regard to Cloridon'sfidelity and her subsequent undeceiving, the closet-scene and itsembarrassments, may smack of the hackneyed devices of stage comedy, butthey are not clumsily handled, and they never make emotional mountainsout of molehills.

  Perhaps the most salient qualities of _Olinda_, in contrast to thefiction of its day, are restraint and control. With the exception of therather ridiculous way in which the complications are resolved at the end(Orontes's sequestration and death from smallpox), everything in thenovel is planned and motivated with some care. Inclinations developslowly and believably; the springs of action, barring a few not veryfantastic coincidences and accidents, are anti-romantic--almost too muchso. Indeed, such criteria of the "modern novel" as those proposed by IanWatt[9] are all modestly but adequately met. Most important, thesituation and behavior of the heroine, her values, and the world inwhich she lives are (but for their sketchy development) what a reader ofJane Austen might take for granted, yet are all but unique before 1740.

  Here is a middle-class heroine who is fully as moral as Pamela, but witha wry sense of humor; she defers to her mother as a matter of coursewhen marriage is in question, yet would willingly evade parentaldecrees; she is capable of Moll Flanders's examinations of motive, yetsees through her own hypocrisies; she lives in London in reducedcircumstances and agrees to a marriage of convenience although temptedto engage in a dashing adultery; and she endures the onset of both loveand jealousy without melodramatic or sentimental posturings.

  Other technical achievements of _Olinda_ aside, the portrait of theheroine as she reveals herself to her confidant is the novel's mostsignificant feature. A fictional heroine of this early date who can besententious without being tedious, who is moderately and believablywitty, who is courted by a goldsmith (even though, conformably to thetimes, he is named Berontus) rather than a prince borrowed from_Astree_, and who satirizes herself soberly for scorning him, who meetsher ideal lover with a business letter rather than in a shipwreck, andwho level-headedly fends him off because he is both married and awould-be philanderer, is a rarity indeed.

  _Olinda_ commends itself to the student of English literary historyprincipally for two reasons: because it so ably anticipates in embryo somany features which the English domestic and realistic novel woulddevelop in its age of maturity and popularity, and because we do not yetunderstand, and need to investigate, the cultural factors--literary,social, and economic--which prevented the kind of achievement itrepresents from being duplicated with any frequency for several decades.

  Queens College, City University of New York