Reviewed by:

• Eliza Fenwick: Early Modern Feminist by Lissa Paul
• Jessica Banner (bio)

On 13 April 1834, Eliza Fenwick wrote a letter to her friend John Moffatt wherein she recounts the mysterious deaths of her two eldest grandsons, William and Thomas Rutherford, who drowned the day before in Lake Ontario. The dramatic circumstances of their deaths in conjunction with the eloquence with which this news is conveyed act as a framing device for Lissa Paul’s investigation. Using this particular letter with its inherent mystery and dramatic premise as her starting point, Paul piques the interest of readers and foregrounds the central role of letter writing in her argument for Eliza Fenwick’s historical relevance. Drawing on letters from the author as well as from her friends and family, Paul argues for this author’s literary importance by crafting an engaging biographical narrative that follows Fenwick’s transatlantic adventures in the late eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth century.

Paul makes a compelling argument for including both an author’s published works and unpublished correspondence in literary biographies. Paul’s text reads as part personal history and part historical adventure novel, where both biographer and subject feature as important characters. The personal intimacy that Paul creates is fostered by using Fenwick’s first name throughout the text and by including anecdotes from Paul’s research process. By using the author’s first name and deliberately shifting into a “first-person strategic” (17) narrative voice to comment on archival materials, Paul creatively constructs a monograph that is firmly rooted in feminist discourse. To this end, Paul is primarily in dialogue with feminist scholars Janet Todd and Lynne Pearce. Paul utilizes both Todd’s suggestion that one of the strengths of feminist criticism is its use of the personal, as well as Pearce’s notion that the use of the strategic first-person in scholarly works signals important relationships within the text and between text and audience (17). Eliza Fenwick is an important contribution to feminist conversations and also to eighteenth-century, Caribbean, and Canadian studies. By using the first-person strategic, Paul creates an accessible text that incorporates literary commentary, historical events, her archival challenges, and Fenwick’s personal experi ences to form a unique biography that can be enjoyed by non-expert readers and academic researchers alike.

In chapter 1 of 7, “Daughter of Methodism,” Paul sets the stage for her investigation by discussing the lives of eighteenth-century itinerant preachers like Fenwick’s father, Peter Jaco (21). This chapter may be particularly useful for those unfamiliar with the period because it provides [End Page 322] a good deal of contextual information on eighteenth-century social history. Chapter 2, “Mother and Author,” continues to trace Eliza’s early years. Perhaps of most interest to eighteenth-century scholars is Paul’s discussion of literary culture in the late eighteenth century. Fenwick’s letters foreground an extensive discussion of the debates about “freedom of speech, reform, revolution and treason” (65). The discussion of her personal life and social circle (which included notable figures like William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft) is linked to larger literary and cultural shifts in the 1790s. In this chapter, Paul underscores the importance of letters to the construction and comprehension of Fenwick’s narrative. Paul establishes the framework for a larger argument that, in the absence of subsequent novels following the publication of her epistolary text Secresy (1795), the extensive collection of letters become her “epistolary autobiography” (63).

Chapters 3 and 4 explore Fenwick’s final years in Britain. Paul meticulously links the ways in which her work as a children’s book author and governess in England and Ireland facilitated both her independence from her husband and her later work as a teacher in Barbados and North America by building up her “educational credentials” and “business acumen” (101). Although the primary focus of these chapters is to demonstrate Fenwick’s significance in the history of children’s literature and showcase her talent as a governess, Paul devotes considerable space to discussing the challenges of compiling the...

审核人：

• 伊丽莎·芬威克（Eliza Fenwick）：早期现代女性主义者，莉萨·保罗（Lissa Paul）
• 杰西卡·班纳（生物）

1834年4月13日，伊丽莎·芬威克（Eliza Fenwick）给她的朋友约翰·莫法特（John Moffatt）写了一封信，其中讲述了她的两个大孙子威廉和托马斯·卢瑟福（Thomas Rutherford）的神秘死亡，前一天在安大略湖被淹死了。他们死亡的戏剧性环境以及传达这一新闻的口才，成为了对莉莎·保罗进行调查的框架。保罗以其固有的神秘性和戏剧性的前提作为这封信的起点，激起了读者的兴趣，并提出了信写作在她对伊丽莎·芬威克的历史意义的论证中的核心作用。利用作者以及她的朋友和家人的来信，

保罗提出了令人信服的论点，他将作者的已出版作品和未出版的书信都包括在文学传记中。保罗的著作既是个人历史，又是历史冒险小说，其中传记作家和主题人物都是重要人物。通过在整个文本中使用Fenwick的名字以及包括Paul研究过程中的轶事，可以促进Paul建立的个人亲密感。通过使用作者的名字，并故意转变成“第一人称战略”（17）的叙事声音来评论档案材料，保罗创造性地构建了一部扎根于女权主义话语的专着。 为此，保罗 主要与女权主义学者珍妮特·托德（Janet Todd）和林恩·皮尔斯（Lynne Pearce）进行对话。保罗既运用了托德（Todd）的建议，即女性主义批评的优势之一就是对个人的使用，又利用了皮尔斯（Pearce）的思想，即在学术作品中使用战略第一人称预示着文本内部以及文本与受众之间的重要关系（17 ）。 伊丽莎·芬威克（Eliza Fenwick）对女权主义对话以及18世纪，加勒比海地区和加拿大的研究做出了重要贡献。通过使用第一人称策略，保罗创建了可访问的文本，其中结合了文学评论，历史事件，她的档案挑战以及芬威克的个人经历，从而形成了非专业读者和学术研究人员均可享用的独特传记。

在第7章第1章“循道卫理的女儿”中，保罗讨论了十八世纪巡回传教士的生活，例如芬威克的父亲彼得·哈科（Peter Jaco，21岁），为她的调查打下了基础。本章对那些不熟悉该期间的人可能特别有用，因为它提供了[End Page 322]。有关18世纪社会历史的大量上下文信息。第2章“母亲与作家”继续追溯Eliza的早年。对于18世纪的学者而言，也许最感兴趣的是保罗在18世纪后期对文学文化的讨论。芬威克的来信对有关“言论自由，改革，革命和叛国罪”的辩论进行了广泛讨论（65）。关于她的个人生活和社交圈（其中包括威廉·戈德温和玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特等著名人物）的讨论与1790年代更大的文学和文化转变有关。在本章中，保罗强调了信件对芬威克叙事的建构和理解的重要性。保罗建立了一个更大的论证框架，Secresy（1795），大量的书信成为她的“书信自传”（63）。

第三章和第四章探讨了芬威克在英国的最后几年。保罗一丝不苟地联系了她在英格兰和爱尔兰的童书作家和女教师的工作，通过建立自己的“教育证书”和“生意”来促进她从丈夫的独立以及后来在巴巴多斯和北美的老师的工作。敏锐”（101）。尽管这些章节的主要重点是展示芬威克在儿童文学史上的重要性并展示她作为家庭女教师的才华，但保罗还是投入了相当多的空间来讨论编写儿童文学的挑战。