And that’s how Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743–1825) came to edit The British Novelists in fifty duodecimo volumes, beginning with eight volumes of Clarissa and another seven of Sir Charles Grandison. She must not have cared for Pamela, though; it is conspicuous by its absence, while its parody, Fielding’s Joseph Andrews, is one of the earliest selections. Also absent are Tristram Shandy and Moll Flanders, although The Vicar of Wakefield does get a look-in, sharing a volume with Pompey the Little. By the time we get to Volumes XXXVI and XXXVII we are definitely scraping the barrel.

The editor’s introduction gives a brief rundown of Charlotte Smith’s life and works. From this we learn, first, that her greatest strength was in poetry, espe­cially sonnets, and, second, that her best novels were Emmeline and Celestina. You will notice that the present offering is, first, a novel, and, second, called The Old Manor House. I’m sure Mrs. Barbauld had her reasons. She also forgets to tell us that the author was born in 1749, and that The Old Manor House was published in 1793. Details. The novel must have been fairly successful in its time; it was even translated into German as Das Alte Schloss.

The Story

Pro tip: Skip lightly over the main plot. Orlando, our hero, gives only occa­sional evidence of having connected brain cells; one modern reviewer dismisses him as “lazy and self-pitying”. In fact the author herself seems to have no idea what to make of her hero. At various points in Volume I, he is described as everything from “uncommonly grave” to “fiery and impetuous”, depending on the exigencies of the moment. Does the author need to quote a poem? Orlando suddenly becomes “passionately fond of poetry”. Does he find himself among non-English-speakers? He reveals a hitherto-unsuspected “unusual aptness to learn languages”.

Monimia, his love interest, is even more troublesome. At first sight, she is simply a hopeless drip. But in the course of the first volume, she gives increasing signs of suffering from a severe, undiag­nosed and untreated anxiety disorder, to the point where any unexpected occurrence leaves her paralyzed with terror.

The supporting characters are more interesting—and often have better sense:

If you’re really in a hurry, you can skip the first 15 or 20 chapters. Nothing much happens until Volume II (Volume III, in four-volume editions).

Spoiler

Scattered through the book are hints that Monimia is not really the house­keeper’s niece; in fact the housekeeper’s own behavior lends some credence to the suspicion. But it’s all a red herring. In the end she is not revealed to be the long-lost heiress to a vast fortune, and she does not end up outranking everyone who was ever mean to her. She’s just the generic downtrodden love interest . . . who happens to be named Monimia. Early on, the author explains that Mrs. Lennard, who named her, had a taste for dramatic literature. “Monimia” is thus the nomenclatural equivalent of those Gothic novels where everything ends up having a prosaic, mundane, natural explanation: you can give your heroine a ridiculous name while shifting the blame onto someone else.

Historical Background

The dramatic date of the novel is the late 1770s. Some readers will recall that there was a fairly significant war going on at the time. Our Hero eventually gets involved in it—but only after he finds someone who can buy him a commission. From 1683 until 1871, commissions and promo­tions in the British army were bought and sold. Literally; hence the term “sell out”. Anywhere else, this would have been evidence of the grossest corruption. In Britain it was a deliberate decision on the part of the Restoration government: if you make military rank expensive, the army will always be controlled by men with a vested interest in preserving the status quo. In 1683, it had not yet occurred to anyone that it was possible to get rich without belonging to the landed aristocracy. Fortu­nately, people who did get rich by other means had no particular interest in getting their sons into the Army; they were too busy getting richer.

Now, here’s a useful detail for writers of historical romances. If a minor wants to run off and get married, she doesn’t have to go all the way to Gretna Green. She can take a quick hop to the Channel Islands instead. This fact was apparently so little-known that even within the novel—set in “one of the most southern counties of England”—the hero gets as far as contemplating a dash for Scotland before remembering that there is a closer alter­native.

Obligatory reminder: In 1793, the title “Mrs.” went to any adult woman, independent of marital status. In the Introduction, the author is Mrs. Charlotte Smith; in Chapter II, we learn that Mrs. Rayland and Mrs. Lennard are both spinsters. (Further reminder: The word “spinster” simply means “never married”, just like the word “single” on a modern-day marriage license. It has no other connotations, positive or negative.)

Raylands and Somerives

The family connections are laid out in the first chapter:

Sir Orlando de Rayland (†)
	— Sir Hildebrand Rayland (†)
		— Barbara (†) — Grace (“Mrs. Rayland”)
		— Catharine (†)
	— [sister] (†) m. Somerive (†)
		— [son] (†) m. Raylands’ companion (†)
			— Somerive m. Isabella Woodford
				— Philip — Philippa — Isabella — Orlando — Selina
				— Emma

Orlando Somerive is thus Mrs. Rayland’s first cousin, twice removed, with an appropriate age gap of about 50 years (two generations). But by the middle of Volume I, our author has forgotten all about the second Somerive—the one who married the Rayland sisters’ companion—with the result that everyone gets shifted up one generation.

Language

Charlotte Smith is believed to be one of the earliest English novelists to show characters speaking “in dialect”. (Some sources even said she was the first, but this is surely an exaggeration.) You’ll see farmers and lower servants using forms and pronunciations from the extreme south of England.

The author had some peculiar ideas about initial “h”. Alongside normal-for-the-time usages like “an heroic”, “an historical” or “an humble”, the book is peppered with unexpected forms: “an heart”, “an house”, “an horse”, “an hundred”. Many words go both ways: here “a husband”, there “an husband”; here “a heavy”, there “an heavy”.

More linguistic quirks, in no particular order:

• The word “scissars” is always spelled that way.
• The spelling “shew” is used consistently, although the editor’s intro­duction has the modern “show”.
• As usual in books of this vintage, -ize spellings are common: “agonizing”, “apologize”, “realize”. You may even find a “surprize” or two.
• Forms like “any body” or “every thing” are always two words.
• Variation between “to day” (morrow, night) and “to-day” (-morrow, -night), and similarly between “New York” and “New-York”, is in the original.
• In fact, don’t look for consistency. Here a “headach”, there a “head ach”; here a “bow window”, there a “bow-window”.
• The book sometimes has “neither . . . or” where we would expect “neither . . . nor”.
• The word “participate” is a simple transitive verb, behaving much like “share”, without following “in”.

And, finally: I do not know why the author thinks “Study”—referring to Orlando’s room in Rayland Manor—needs to be capitalized, as it is throughout the second half of Volume I (most of Volume II in four-volume editions). The editor lower-cased a few of them, but didn’t change everything systematically.

Formalities

The text used here is from The British Novelists, edited by Anna Laetitia Barbauld. I have renumbered the chapters continuously from I through LII instead of starting afresh with each volume. It could have been worse; the second edition (1793) has four sets of chapter numbers:

1793 (2nd edition)		British Novelists		ebook
Vol. I	I-XII	Vol. I	I-XII	I-XII
Vol. II	I-XIII		XIII-XXV	XIII-XXV
Vol. III	I-III		XXVI-XXVIII	XXVI-XXVIII
	IV-XIV	Vol. II	I-XI	XXIX-XXXIX
Vol. IV	I-XIII		XII-XXIV	XL-LII

The two British Novelists volumes may be slightly mismatched, as they represent different editions: Volume I (Vol. XXXVI of the series) is from 1810, Volume II (XXXVII) from 1820. At a few points I checked the text against the 1793 second edition (Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4). But differences between the two volumes are just as likely to be authorial as editorial. In particular, the second volume has footnotes. It looks as if Charlotte Smith was feeling increasingly rushed, and had to cram things into footnotes that she ought to have worked into the main text—or omitted altogether.

The two volumes also have minor differences in punctuation. I have left everything as I found it, with one exception. The printed book (both volumes) varied between long —— and short — dashes. I have unilaterally decided that the choice was based purely on the length of the typeset line, and have generally regularized them to simple — dashes. Late in the first volume, and continuing through much of the second, the main characters discover the joy of speaking in . . . ellipses . . . . . the longer, the better. There can’t possibly be any significance to the number or spacing of the dots, but I’ve kept them as printed, just in case.

To make up for the dots and dashes, Anna Laetitia Barbauld—the editor, not the author—seems not to have approved of quotation marks. Throughout the novel, she allows them to be used only when quoting written texts, such as letters or poetry.

Typographical errors are marked with mouse-hover popups and are listed again at the end of each chapter. The word “invisible” means that the letter or punctuation mark is missing, but there is an appropriately sized blank space. Apparent errors were corrected if the 2nd edition had the expected form. (Query: Why didn’t I simply use this edition in the first place? Answer: Because there aren’t any good scans available. Besides, it’s got long esses.) Unambiguous errors, like “unusal” for “unusual”, were corrected regardless.

Contents

The printed book had no Table of Contents, no chapter summaries or even titles. We will have to make do with the opening line of each chapter:

Introduction by Anna Laetitia Barbauld
I	In an old Manor House in one of the most southern counties of England
II	The confidential servant, or rather companion and femme de charge of Mrs. Rayland
III	However trifling the incident was
IV	Love rendered Orlando so politic
V	The clock in the servants’ hall struck twelve
VI	Another and another evening Orlando attended at the turret
VII	The day had been unusually warm; but towards evening a thunder-storm came on
VIII	Mr. Somerive determined to write to Mrs. Rayland
IX	Early on the following morning, Monimia prepared herself
X	The unfortunate rencontre which promised to produce so much uneasiness
XI	Orlando left Mrs. Rayland about twelve o’clock
XII	It was probable that Sir John Belgrave’s messenger would immediately return
XIII	On the following morning Orlando received an early summons from his father
XIV	Orlando found Betty waiting for him as she had promised
XV	Every one of the party who met at dinner were ready to worship the General
XVI	The family of Somerive was almost the only one who had not waited on Mr. Stockton
XVII	To reconcile Monimia to his departure
XVIII	The meeting of the evening promised to be undisturbed.
XIX	Orlando returned to Rayland Hall carrying with him the most polite answer from General Tracy
XX	Monimia, secure of the tenderest affection of her lover
XXI	At length Mrs. Rayland was seated
XXII	Selina was too much terrified at the risk Orlando ran
XXIII	Orlando found Monimia alarmed and dejected
XXIV	Instead of the reproaches Orlando expected to hear
XXV	The house of West Wolverton too had its politicians
XXVI	Orlando could not conceal the anguish of his heart
XXVII	Orlando, already repenting that he had told the game-keeper so much
XXVIII	Somerive received his son with tenderness; but his dejection was but too visible.
XXIX	Sufficiently punished by the alarm he had been in, Orlando no longer ventured
XXX	On their arrival Selina was agreeably surprised
XXXI	A moment’s reflection recalled the confused and dissipated thoughts of Orlando
XXXII	For Orlando, there could not be a more dangerous companion than Captain Warwick.
XXXIII	Three happy days now passed rapidly away.
XXXIV	Mr. Somerive exclaimed, Good God; what is to be done now?
XXXV	Torn by these distracting contests between love and duty
XXXVI	Exhausted by the fatigue of body and mind
XXXVII	By the medical skill of the surgeon of the regiment
XXXVIII	The increasing difficulties to which the British army were exposed
XXXIX	The small party dispatched on this hazardous adventure
XL	In a very few days after leaving this temporary settlement, Orlando arrived at Quebec.
XLI	An apprehension of the truth, vague as it was
XLII	After a pause, sufficiently expressive of the difficulty with which he thought
XLIII	The variety of uneasy emotions which passed through the mind of Orlando, as he journeyed towards London
XLIV	When you left us, my brother, said Selina
XLV	If Orlando had known Monimia was in safety
XLVI	The unfortunate brother of Orlando
XLVII	At Salisbury Orlando determined to make some slight alteration in his plan
XLVIII	Early on the following morning Orlando left Winchester
XLIX	In retiring to the room Mrs. Fleming had ordered to be prepared
L	Nearly six weeks more now passed
LI	On his return home, Orlando related to his wife
LII	The young man to whom Orlando now applied