Eliza Haywood

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EH was the most prolific novelist by number of titles (even ignoring those doubtfully ascribed) between Aphra Behn and Charlotte Smith . She also wrote poems, plays, periodicals, conduct books, translation, and theatre history. Her output of 72 works and four collections (actual or planned) skews all graphs of the rising output of published works by women. Some readers find the endless, breathless sex scenes of her earlier fiction tedious; but behind the sensationalism is a sharp mind. She is hilariously satirical, pointedly topical, formally inventive and experimental, and trenchantly critical of power misused (in both political and gender relations). Her career shows a certain direction as well as a constant opportunism. The varied origins of the novel gave her scope for original hybridizations of the pliable new form. Her Betsy Thoughtless first brought to the post-Richardsonian novel a female viewpoint unmonitored by male mentors. Her Female Spectator was the first woman's work in the new magazine genre.
Black and white engraving of Eliza Haywood by George Vertue after a painting by James Parmentier. It has an oval frame tied with a ribbon at the top and set within a rectangular from. Haywood's hair is tied back, with a lock of it showing on her left shoulder. She is wearing a dress with a deep decolletage and lace at the bosom. This engraving was used as frontispiece to vol. i of her "Secret Histories, Novels and Poems", of which the second (and perhaps only) edition appeared in 1725.

Milestones

1692-3

EH was probably born at the turn of the year.
Blouch, Christine. “Eliza Haywood and the Romance of Obscurity”. Studies in English Literature, Vol.
31
, pp. 535-52.
537

22 January 1719

EH brought out the first, anonymous part of her earliest known work: Love in Excess; or the Fatal Enquiry. A Novel. Two more handsome volumes followed serially, bearing her name, by 26 February 1720.
Spedding, Patrick. A Bibliography of Eliza Haywood. Pickering and Chatto.
90-3
Whicher, George Frisbie. The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood. Columbia University Press.
190
Haywood, Eliza. “Introduction and Chronology of Events in Eliza Haywood’s Life”. The Injur’d Husband, or, The Mistaken Resentment; and, Lasselia, or, The Self-Abandon’d, edited by Jerry C. Beasley, University Press of Kentucky, p. ix - xlii.
xxxix
Oakleaf, David. “Review of Patrick Spedding, <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>A Bibliography of Eliza Haywood</span&gt”;. The Scriblerian, Vol.
39
, No. 1, pp. 61-2.
61

24 April 1744

EH began publishing an anonymous monthly magazine, The Female Spectator, running to about 6,000 words an issue.
Spedding, Patrick. A Bibliography of Eliza Haywood. Pickering and Chatto.
439
Haywood, Eliza. “Introduction and Chronology of Events in Eliza Haywood’s Life”. The Injur’d Husband, or, The Mistaken Resentment; and, Lasselia, or, The Self-Abandon’d, edited by Jerry C. Beasley, University Press of Kentucky, p. ix - xlii.
xli
Prescott, Sarah, and Jane Spencer. “Prattling, tattling and knowing everything: public authority and the female editorial persona in the early essay-periodical”. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
23
, No. 1, pp. 43-57.
45

May 1746

EH 's The Female Spectator ceased publication after a run of two years.
Whicher, George Frisbie. The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood. Columbia University Press.
203

24 October 1751

EH proved her mastery of the new novel of social realism in The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless.
Spedding, Patrick. A Bibliography of Eliza Haywood. Pickering and Chatto.
538
Whicher, George Frisbie. The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood. Columbia University Press.
186

25 February 1756

EH died at 2 Cowley Street, Westminster, of an undisclosed illness which lasted three months.
Patrick Spedding has contradicted Christine Blouch , who said that EH died in New Peter Street, Westminster.
Spedding, Patrick. A Bibliography of Eliza Haywood. Pickering and Chatto.
274
Blouch, Christine. “Eliza Haywood and the Romance of Obscurity”. Studies in English Literature, Vol.
31
, pp. 535-52.
535
Spedding, Patrick. A Bibliography of Eliza Haywood. Pickering and Chatto.
274
Highfill, Philip H. et al. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press.

26 February 1756

EH 's The Husband. In Answer to the Wife, a sequel and counterpart to her conduct book of the previous year, was her final publication. It appeared on this date, apparently the day after she died.
Spedding, Patrick. A Bibliography of Eliza Haywood. Pickering and Chatto.
604-7
Haywood, Eliza. “Introduction and Chronology of Events in Eliza Haywood’s Life”. The Injur’d Husband, or, The Mistaken Resentment; and, Lasselia, or, The Self-Abandon’d, edited by Jerry C. Beasley, University Press of Kentucky, p. ix - xlii.
xlii

Biography

Birth

1692-3

EH was probably born at the turn of the year.
Blouch, Christine. “Eliza Haywood and the Romance of Obscurity”. Studies in English Literature, Vol.
31
, pp. 535-52.
537

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