The Works of Charlotte Smith, Part II

Part II Volume 6 The Old Manor House (1794) Generally considered Smith's masterpiece, this novel again enlarges her perspective. Moving back a generation in time and between England and the battlefields of revolutionary America , Smith continues to insinuate political ideas in the face of growing censorship. The novel's candid sexuality seems likewise deliberately to resist the reactionary climate that followed Britain 's declaring war on France . Volume 7 The Wanderings of Warwick (1794); The Banished Man (1794) Smith's novella, The Wanderings of Warwick is the first-person narrative of an auxiliary character in The Old Manor House who moves from the West Indies, of which Smith gained knowledge through assisting her father-in-law in his trading business, to Portugal, Spain, and, eventually, England. In The Banished Man exile is the broad theme around which Smith gathers an international and multilingual cast of characters dislocated by the European war. In this text she also wittily introduces a woman novelist modeled on herself. Volume 8 Montalbert (1795) A chronicle history of two generations of unconventional women victimised by marriage to proud, violent husbands, Montalbert is Smith's darkest exploration of the institution of marriage and of the insidious gender politics constraining contemporary women. Volume 9 Marchmont (1796) A precursor of Bleak House, Marchmont is Smith's most direct attack on the legal system she felt had persecuted her and her children. Lawyers, bailiffs, and legal functionaries invade every corner of the novel. The novel also features a heroine who sets to work for her living. Volume 10 The Young Philosopher (1798) Dedicated to Mary Wollstonecraft and clearly invoking William Godwin among its characters, The Young Philosopher, for all its ideological commitment and satiric vigor, reveals little cause for hope in its extensive social critique.