Volume 1 — AUTHOR's PREFACE.
Reading edition
The Wrongs of Woman, like the wrongs of the oppreſſed part of mankind, may be deemed neceſſary by their oppreſſors: but ſurely there are a few, who will dare to advance before the improvement of the age, and grant that my ſketches are not the abortion of a diſtempered fancy, or the ſtrong delineations of a wounded heart.
In writing this novel, I have rather endeavoured to pourtray paſſions than manners.
In many inſtances I could have made the incidents more dramatic, would I have ſacrificed my main object, the deſire of exhibiting the miſery and oppreſſion, peculiar to women, that ariſe out of the partial laws and cuſtoms of ſociety.
In the invention of the ſtory, this view reſtrained my fancy; and the hiſtory ought rather to be conſidered, as of woman, than of an individual.
The ſentiments I have embodied.
In many works of this ſpecies, the hero is allowed to be mortal, and to become wiſe and virtuous as well as happy, by a train of events and circumſtances. The heroines, on the contrary, are to be born immaculate; and to act like goddeſſes of wiſdom, juſt come forth highly finiſhed Minervas from the head of Jove.
[The following is an extract of a letter from the author to a friend, to whom ſhe communicated her manuſcript.]
For my part, I cannot ſuppoſe any ſituation more diſtreſſing, than for a woman of ſenſibility, with an improving mind, to be bound to ſuch a man as I have deſcribed for life; obliged to renounce all the humanizing affections, and to avoid cultivating her taſte, leſt her perception of grace and refinement of ſentiment, ſhould ſharpen to agony the pangs of diſappointment. Love, in which the imagination mingles its bewitching colouring, muſt be foſtered by delicacy. I ſhould deſpiſe, or rather call her an ordinary woman, who could endure ſuch a huſband as I have ſketched.
Theſe appear to me (matrimonial deſpotiſm of heart and conduct) to be the peculiar Wrongs of Woman, becauſe they degrade the mind. What are termed great miſfortunes, may more forcibly impreſs the mind of common readers; they have more of what may juſtly be termed ſtage-effect; but it is the delineation of finer ſenſations, which, in my opinion, conſtitutes the merit of our beſt novels. This is what I have in view; and to ſhow the wrongs of different claſſes of women, equally oppreſſive, though, from the difference of education, neceſſarily various.