The City Jilt

Periodicals and non-fiction

Frontispiece to The Female Spectator, Vol. 1

While writing popular novels, Eliza Haywood also worked on periodicals, essays and manuals on social behaviour (conduct books). The Female Spectator (24 numbers, 1745–1746),[13][14] a monthly, was written in response to the contemporary The Spectator by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele. In The Female Spectator, Haywood wrote in four personae (Mira, Euphrosine, Widow of Quality and The Female Spectator) and took positions on issues such as marriage, children, reading, education and conduct. It was the first periodical written for women by a woman and arguably one of her most significant contributions to women's writing. Haywood followed a lead by contemporary John Dunton who issued the Ladies' Mercury as a companion to his successful Athenian Mercury. Though The Ladies' Mercury was a self-proclaimed women's journal, it was produced by men (Spacks, p. xii).

The Parrot (1746) apparently earned her questions from the government for political statements about Charles Edward Stuart. Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots (1725) is termed a "hybrid" by Schofield (p. 103), as a work of non-fiction that makes use of narrative techniques. Reflections on the Various Effects of Love (1726) is a didactic account of what can happen to a woman when she gives in to her passions. This piece displays the sexual double standard that allows men to love freely without social consequence and women to be called scandalous for doing the same. The Wife and The Husband (1756) are conduct books for each partner in a marriage. The Wife was first published anonymously (by Mira, one of Haywood's personas from The Female Spectator); The Husband: in Answer to The Wife followed later the same year with Haywood's name attached.

Haywood also worked on sensational pamphlets on the contemporary deaf-mute prophet, Duncan Campbell. They include A Spy Upon the Conjurer (1724) and The Dumb Projector: Being a Surprising Account of a Trip to Holland Made by Duncan Campbell (1725).


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