Romance Readers and Romance Writers - by Sarah Green (Hardcover)

Little is known about early nineteenth-century novelist Sarah Green other than that she was well-read, well-travelled, and did most of her writing between the years 1808 and 1824. "Romance Readers and Romance Writers" (1810) is a satirical novel in which she sets out" to shew the effects of romance-reading on the weak and ductile mind of youth." Green's Quixotic young heroine, who avidly devours popular romances, especially those of the Gothic variety, begins by taking a more romantic name (." . . Peggy? My name, sir, is Margaritta; and to no other name will I, hereafter, give an answer."). Her life is imbued with the aura of her favorite genre. She convinces herself, for example, that her uncle's country house is haunted because at night she hears noises" which proceeded from no other cause than what is very common in such old houses, which was an army of rats." In a witty and entertaining preface, Green critiques the work of a number of the popular romance writers of her day, beginning by pronouncing that "Romance proved favourable to the cause of gallantry and heroism during the dark ages, but we, thank heaven live in more enlightened days."