E. M. Foster

E. M. Foster (fl. late 18th – early 19th c.) was a relatively early female novelist. Some 14 popular novels of hers appeared in London between 1795 and 1810.[1]

Not to be confused with E. M. Forster.

Novels

The Duke of Clarence. An historical novel (1795, signed E. M. F.)[2] takes place in the 15th century, presented in what a modern critic has called "an incongruous style".[1] The illegitimate boy is advised to reclaim his unhappy mother, but finds it hard to lay down his arms after the Battle of Bosworth Field, which ended the Wars of the Roses.[1][3]

Foster's writing showed some improvement as she turned to more modern subject-matter in Frederic and Caroline, or the Fitzmorris Family (1800, E. M. F.),[2] which she dedicated to the Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales. It was one of four novels of hers to appear in that year, and includes a scene set in the Minerva Circulating Library, which was associated with the Minerva Press, responsible for most of her books.[1] Light and Shade: a novel. By the author of 'Federetta' (a pseudonym of Mrs E. M. Foster), was published in 1803 in Bath and London and described as being by the author of "Rebecca, Judith, Miriam, etc."[2]

Views

Foster's conservative social views are shown particularly in The Corinna of England, and a Heroine in the Shade (1809), in which retribution is wreaked on a shallowly portrayed version of the French author Germaine de Staël's heroine of that name.[4][1] This work has also been ascribed to the another novelist active at the time, Mrs. E. G. Bayfield, perhaps through a confusion at the publisher's.[5][1] Foster's work largely endorses mainstream Christian morals, often taking an ironic approach through a narrator who identifies as a woman with a proto-feminist outlook.[6]

Life

E. M. Foster's personal details and life remain "obscure".[1]

References
  1. Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy, eds., The Feminist Companion to Literature in English. Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. London: Batsford, 1990, p. 388.
  2. British Library. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  3. "Thrice he essayed... a tear fell upon the glittering steel [of his sword]. The hero blushed; and hastily wiped away the clouded moisture." Quoted in Feminist.
  4. Corinne, ou L'Italie (1807),
  5. Bordoni, Sylvia, ed. (2015). "Introduction". The Corinna of England, or a Heroine in the Shade; A Modern Romance by E. M. Foster. Routledge. pp. 7–. ISBN 978-1-317-30349-7.
  6. Susan Brown, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy, eds. Mrs E. M. Foster: Overview. In Orlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Online, 2006. <//orlando.cambridge.org/>. 19 May 2020.
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