Mrs Showes

This obscure author, whose full name remains unknown, published at least four works at and just beyond the end of the eighteenth century. All her work, novels and shorter tales, either makes the claim to be translated from German or French, or is set in continental Europe. Her work is unpolished, with creaking, over-complex plots, large casts of characters, and melodramatic detail. But MS is of interest because she chooses, with some consistency, to write about issues which are both central and difficult in women's lives: of problems in marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood. She strikingly anticipates particular elements in the work of more than one Victorian woman writer.