Sentimental fiction was pervasive in early Republican literature, not only among the published novels but also in the sketches, stories, and serializations of fiction that appeared in early American magazines. Among the most popular works imported from England throughout the eighteenth century were sentimental novels: Pamela and Clarissa by Samuel Richardson, and A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne. Today, the term “sentimental” generally indicates that a work is emotional, perhaps overly so. Sentimental fiction was certainly characterized by an interest in emotion, but the eighteenth-century conception of sentimentality was more elaborate than that.

“Sentimentalists” believed that emotion was the key to human connection and to relationships—the glue that cemented society together. Sympathy was regarded as the capacity of one person to experience emotion created by the emotion of another. Sympathy bound friends and family members together, but it also accounted for philanthropy and charity, as well as the possibility of reforming those whose unruly behavior disturbed the social fabric. So, although sentimental fiction often deals with romance, it also explores other relationships that might be affected by sympathy or sentiment.

Although sentimentality was not the only mode for fiction, it was the dominant one, so much so that the fiction loudly proclaimed to be the “first American novel” referred to a key component of sentimentality in its title: The Power of Sympathy; or, The Triumph of Nature by William Hill Brown. The two novels by Americans recognized as best-sellers (based on the relationship of sales to the population at the time) were also sentimental novels: Charlotte Temple by Susanna Rowson and The Coquette by Hannah Webster Foster. These novels set a pattern for the novel of seduction, which typically ends with the death of the seduced woman. However, other novels, notably Leonora Sansay’s Laura (1809), varied the pattern, allowing the seduced woman to survive.

Other more optimistic sentimental novels employing seduction themes avoided disaster by having their heroines resist temptation, eventually reaching a happy ending. Emily Hamilton (1803) by Sukey Vickery is an epistolary novel about romance and marriage that explores options for young women by having the central character involved with three potential husbands. Emily Hamilton sticks to the path of virtue and is rewarded by marriage to the man of her choice. Foster’s The Boarding School (1798) presents the flip side of the novel of seduction, in which the central character makes the wrong choice and is punished.

Seduction was not always the center of sentimental fiction. Some sentimental novels traced the difficulties of a pair of lovers who, for one reason or another, encountered obstacles to the consummation of their love. The Asylum: or, Alonzo and Melissa (1811) by Isaac Mitchell falls into this category, as do, arguably, Clara Howard (1801) and Jane Talbot (1801) by Charles Brockden Brown.

In addition to seduction and marriage, sentimental fiction often dealt with perilous and imperiled finances. Dorval; or, The Speculator (1801) by Sally Wood warned against the danger of financial speculation. The Gamesters; or, Ruins of Innocence (1805) by Caroline Matilda Warren Thayer is a good example of a sentimental novel whose focus is primarily on male characters. Rather than romance, the plot revolves around economics. Kelroy (1812) by Rebecca Rush, like the novels of Jane Austen, emphasized the connection between money and romantic love.

Sentimental fiction could also adopt other generic conventions. Rowson’s Reuben and Rachel (1798), for example, adapted the sentimental mode to a historical novel that spanned from 1492 to the end of the eighteenth century, tracing the romantic adventures of a far-flung family.

Although the most popular of the sentimental novels are readily available in multiple editions, others are still more difficult to obtain. This situation is being transformed by internet access, particularly the resources made available through Google Books. Brown’s Power of Sympathy and Foster’s The Coquette are available in one volume edited by Carla J. Mulford (1996). Both of Sansay’s novels (Secret History [1808] and Laura) are available in a single volume edited by Michael Drexler (2007). Charlotte Temple is available in several editions; for a volume with a historically important critical introduction, see Cathy N. Davidson’s edition (1987). Oxford also published Rebecca Rush’s Kelroy (1993), edited by Dana Nelson. Using Google Books, one can find complete reading copies of eighteenth- or nineteenth-century editions of at least the following: Lucy Temple (first published in 1828 as Charlotte’s Daughter, Rowson’s sequel to Charlotte Temple), Rowson’s Sarah, or the Exemplary Wife (1813), Caroline Thayer’s The Gamesters, or the Ruins of Innocence, Charles Brockden Brown’s Clara Howard and Jane Talbot, and Isaac Mitchell’s The Asylum: or, Alonzo and Melissa.

The most comprehensive introduction to early American fiction remains Davidson’s Revolution and the Word (1986; expanded 2004). Students interested in following the critical debates about early American fiction should familiarize themselves with the debates over the extent to which sentimental fiction serves as an allegory about politics. Jane Tompkins in Sensational Designs (1985) was among the first proponents of an interpretation of sentimental fiction as politically engaged. Shirley Samuels in Romances of the Republic (1996) argued that early American fiction was indeed interested in political formations, but that the emphasis was on the shaping of families as a unit of civil society rather than on individuals.

Readers interested in the political dimensions of the novel of seduction will want to see at least the early chapters of Elizabeth Barnes’s States of Sympathy: Seduction and Democracy in the American Novel (1997). For an opposing view, see Stephen Shapiro’s The Culture and Commerce of the Early American Novel (2008).

Students interested in the financial matters dealt with in early fiction will want to consult Joseph Fichtelberg’s Critical Fictions: Sentiment and the American Market (2003), Jennifer Baker’s cross-genre study Securing the Commonwealth: Debt, Speculation, and Writing in the Making of Early America (2005), as well as Karen Weyler’s Intricate Relations: Sexual and Economic Desire in American Fiction (2004). Baker provides a longer historical view to contextualize financial matters as they appear in literature, while Weyler offers more readings of individual novels from the early Republican period.

Topics for Discussion and Research

1. The eighteenth-century debates about fiction pitted a view of literature as educational against a view of literature as primarily entertaining. Even when writers explicitly state that their purpose is education (maybe especially in that case), readers might reasonably disagree. How do individual novels work to educate readers? Do the novels ever work at cross-purposes, claiming to teach one lesson but really suggesting another? Readers might also wish to consider in what ways the novels are entertaining and make their own analysis of the role of entertainment versus education in these novels.
2. How do sentimental novels relate to real social values regarding sexuality during the era? Good background will be found in the collection of essays Sex and Sexuality in Early America (1998), edited by Merril Smith, and also Richard Godbeer’s Sexual Revolution in Early America (2002).
3. Some critics, including Davidson in Revolution and the Word, have demonstrated the link between novels and women’s education. In many of these novels, discussions of women’s education feature in the novels themselves. Students might wish to compare visions of education and women’s reading (good novels to consider would be Sansay’s Laura, Foster’s Coquette and especially The Boarding School, and Charles Brockden Brown’s Clara Howard).
4. Debates about the gender politics of these novels are long-standing. Whether written by a man or a woman, does a given novel appear to suggest that women’s options in life were inappropriately limited? The Coquette, with its central character who uses the language of independence that recalls the Declaration of Independence, has been a central text in the debate, but these questions can profitably be pursued in any sentimental novel.

5. As noted above, much recent criticism of the sentimental novel has dealt with the relationship between sentiment and economics. For background on economic thought in the era, students might wish to consult A Union of Interests: Political and Economic Thought in Revolutionary America, edited by Cathy D. Matson and Peter S. Onuf (1990).

Categories: Literature, Novel Analysis

Tags: 18th-century literature, A Sentimental Journey, American Literature, American market literature, American novel of seduction, American sentimentalism, Caroline Matilda Warren Thayer, Charles Brockden Brown, Charlotte Temple, Clara Howard, Clarissa, critical fiction studies, Digital Humanities, early American fiction, early American magazines, early American novels, early American women's writing, economics and romance, Epistolary Novels, family and sentiment, financial fiction, financial speculation in literature, Google Books, Hannah Webster Foster, historical critical editions, historical novels, Isaac Mitchell, Jane Austen, Jane Talbot, Kelroy, Laura, Leonora Sansay, literary history, political allegory in fiction, political dimensions of early fiction, Rebecca Rush, Revolutionary War fiction, Samuel Richardson, seduction and democracy, seduction novels, sentimental journey, Sentimental novels, social reform literature, Susanna Rowson, The Asylum, The Coquette, The Gamesters, The Power of Sympathy, William Hill Brown