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[FOSTER, HANNAH.]. The Coquette; Or, the History of Eliza Wharton: A Novel; Founded on Fact. Charlestown, [Mass.]: 1802. 2nd ed. 16mo. 261, [1] pp. Disbound. Text very good, a sound copy. $250.00

 

Wright I, 987. Wegelin, Early American Fiction, p. 19 (1797 ed.). S & S 2239. Ostensibly based upon the relationship between Elizabeth Whitman and Pierpont Edwards, youngest son of Jonathon Edwards, this caused a sensation upon its publication. It recounts, in a series of letters, the seduction, elopement, and death in childbirth of the tragic Eliza Wharton.

"From a literary standpoint, The Coquette is a prototype of Richardson's Clarissa Harlowe and Susanna H. Rowson's Charlotte Temple, a moral tale of the unhappy fate of one who strays from virtue. At the time of publication it was absent from few homes where any reading was done..."-DAB. "Similar in its moral aim to The Power of Sympathy and Charlotte Temple...The Coquette (1797) has neither the extreme sentimentality of Mrs. Morton [sic] nor the sensationalism of Mrs. Rowson...It is superior to its predecessors in interest and especially in character-drawing; the personages are individuals not types, speaking well in character, in letters as vivacious as the epistolary conventions of the time would allow...Of all the tales of these women novelists, The Coquette remains the most readable, and preserves a faded appeal... Early in the nineteenth century The Coquette's popularity rivalled that of Charlotte. Many editions were bought and wept over, and a reprint was made as late as 1874." -Loshe, The Early American Novel, pp. 13-14. A scarce and important American novel which was reprinted at least thirteen times within forty years of its appearance (see CHALI, pp. 285-86).