Author: [MUDFORD (William)]:
Title: Nubilia in Search of a Husband; including Sketches of Modern Society, and Interspersed with Moral and Literary Disquisitions.
Description: London: Printed for J. Ridgway, Ridgeway and Sherwood, Neely and Jones, 1809. FIRST EDITION. 8vo,183 x 119, pp. [vi], 456, contemporary half calf, spine gilt in compartments, marbled boards; spine chipped at top and bottom with loss of leather The author and journalist William Mudford (1782–1848) spent most of his early career as a political journalist, but also composed "fiction for the pages of Bentley's Monthly Magazine and Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. The most notable of these were tales of terror contributed to Blackwood's between 1829 and 1830. Such pieces as 'The Iron Shroud', 'Malavolti, a Neapolitan Story', and 'Silent Member', with their emphasis on sensations and their intensely focused, precise narratorial descriptions and renderings of the effects of terror on the individual, were at the core of an influential series of stories published in the pages of Blackwood's during this period" (ODNB). Nubilia is an interesting contribution to the Austen period novel, a satirical reply to Hannah More, in which a young girl is freed by the death of her all-powerful father into society and freedom of thought. Though popular at the time, this first edition is scarce, having been in its first year withdrawn in favour of an enlarged version with two extra chapters. The Monthly Review noticed the work at some length but was not impressed: "In our judgement, this work, though far from being a flimsy and inferior production, will not afford much satisfaction to either sex. It is barren of character; and the heroine sustains an unnatural part, where, when being shewn the world before she makes her choice, she is presented to us as the sage moralist and the learned critic."

Keywords: fiction manners


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