When the fourth volume appeared in 1789, the Critical found it heavy, languid and uninteresting, and judged the serial publication to have been a mistake.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
EST
's brother Thomas Edlyne
included a poem in praise of The Victim of Fancy in their joint volume in 1797.
Tomlins, Elizabeth Sophia, and Sir Thomas Edwyne Tomlins. Tributes of Affection. Longman and Dilly, 1797.
77
The Gentleman's Magazinecalled this novel, when it was published, a worthy successor...
Literary responses
Charlotte Smith
An extensive notice, perhaps by Mary Wollstonecraft
, in the Analytical Review, says this novel is distinguished among others by its quality, yet shares their general tendency to debauch the mind
Wollstonecraft, Mary. The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft. Editors Todd, Janet and Marilyn Butler, Pickering, 1989, 7 vols.
7: 26
(especially...
Publishing
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
The two albums comprising the manuscript had been transcribed in Rotterdam while in the custody of the Rev. Benjamin Sowden
, by young men on their travels, who borrowed it overnight and managed to copy...
