Jump to content

Rachel Hunter (author)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rachel Hunter (c. 1754 – 1813) was an English woman novelist of the early 19th century who lived and worked in Norwich. She was a contemporary of Jane Austen.

Literary setting

[edit]

Rachel Hunter wrote for the same circulating library readership as Jane Austen, and like the latter she might belittle standard novel conventions in writings like Letitia.[1] Her writings were well known in the Austen circle, one acquaintance describing a state of well-being as "quite Palmerstone", after Hunter's Letters from Mrs Palmerstone.[2]

Jane's niece Anna Austen had her aunt in stitches by reading passages from Lady Maclean, where the protagonists were always in floods of tears;[3] and Jane herself composed a mock fan-letter to "Mrs Hunter of Norwich...Miss Jane Austen's tears have flowed over each sweet sketch in such a way as would do Mrs Hunter's heart good to see".[4]

Works

[edit]
  • Letitia, or, The Castle without a Spectre (1801)
  • The History of the Grubthorpe Family (1802)
  • Letters from Mrs Palmerstone to her Daughter, Inculcating Morality by Entertaining Narratives (1803)
  • The Unexpected Legacy (1804)[5]
  • Lady Maclairn, the Victim of Villany (1806)
  • Family Annals (1807)
  • The Schoolmistress (1811)

References

[edit]
  1. ^ R Rathbun ed., From Jane Austen to Joseph Conrad (1967) p. 39
  2. ^ Fanny, Lady Knatchbull, quoted in D Le Faye ed., Jane Austen's Letters (Oxford 1995) p. 107
  3. ^ J Myer, Jane Austen: Obstinate Heart (1997) p. 178
  4. ^ D Le Faye ed., Jane Austen's Letters (Oxford 1995) p. 195
  5. ^ Chawton House has a PDF of The Unexpected Legacy.

Further reading

[edit]
[edit]