Rachel Hunter (author)
Rachel Hunter (c. 1754 – 1813) was an English woman novelist of the early 19th century who lived and worked in Norwich. She was a contemporary of Jane Austen.
Literary setting[edit]
Rachel Hunter wrote for the same circulating library readership as Jane Austen, and like the latter she might belittle standard novel conventions in writings like Letitia.[1] Her writings were well known in the Austen circle, one acquaintance describing a state of well-being as "quite Palmerstone", after Hunter's Letters from Mrs Palmerstone.[2]
Jane's niece Anna Austen had her aunt in stitches by reading passages from Lady Maclean, where the protagonists were always in floods of tears;[3] and Jane herself composed a mock fan-letter to "Mrs Hunter of Norwich...Miss Jane Austen's tears have flowed over each sweet sketch in such a way as would do Mrs Hunter's heart good to see".[4]
Works[edit]
- Letitia, or, The Castle without a Spectre (1801)
- The History of the Grubthorpe Family (1802)
- Letters from Mrs Palmerstone to her Daughter, Inculcating Morality by Entertaining Narratives (1803)
- The Unexpected Legacy (1804)[5]
- Lady Maclairn, the Victim of Villany (1806)
- Family Annals (1807)
- The Schoolmistress (1811)
References[edit]
- ^ R Rathbun ed., From Jane Austen to Joseph Conrad (1967) p. 39
- ^ Fanny, Lady Knatchbull, quoted in D Le Faye ed., Jane Austen's Letters (Oxford 1995) p. 107
- ^ J Myer, Jane Austen: Obstinate Heart (1997) p. 178
- ^ D Le Faye ed., Jane Austen's Letters (Oxford 1995) p. 195
- ^ Chawton House has a PDF of The Unexpected Legacy.
Further reading[edit]
- Thomas Seccombe, ‘Hunter, Rachel (c.1754–1813)’, rev. Rebecca Mills, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 7 Nov 2006
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