From Manuscript to Print: Revising the Eighteenth-Century Novel

FAIN: FT-248660-16

Hilary Christine Havens
University of Tennessee, Knoxville (Knoxville, TN 37916-3801)

A book-length study of how 18th-century British novelists revised their works, using new digital software that recovers deleted text from manuscripts.

My planned monograph, “From Manuscript to Print: Revising the Eighteenth-Century Novel,” recovers and analyzes material from major novel manuscripts and post-publication revisions in order to construct a new narrative about the eighteenth-century creative mind. Criticism of the eighteenth-century novel and even work in the burgeoning field of print culture has often neglected the importance of the process of revision, which in the eighteenth century often occurs in complex response to family and friends, to readers and editors, and to an author’s own previous texts. Many of my insights arise from my development of new digital paleographical methodologies to recover deleted text.

Associated Products

Revising the Eighteenth-Century Novel (Book)
Title: Revising the Eighteenth-Century Novel
Author: Hilary Havens
Abstract: Revisions form a natural part of the writing process, but is the concept of revision actually an intrinsic part of the formation of the novel genre? Through the recovery and analysis of material from novel manuscripts and post-publication revisions, Hilary Havens identifies a form of 'networked authorship'. By tracing authors' revisions to their novels, the influence of familial and literary circles, reviewers, and authors' own previous writings can be discerned. Havens focuses on the work of Samuel Richardson, Frances Burney, Jane Austen, and Maria Edgeworth to challenge the individualistic view of authorship that arose during the Romantic period, and argues that networked authorship shaped the composition of eighteenth-century novels. Exploring these themes of collaboration and social networks, as well as engaging with the burgeoning trend towards textual recovery, this work is an important contribution in the study of eighteenth-century novels and their manuscript counterparts.
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/revising-the-eighteenthcentury-novel/4711332D4FF72CC5AB5CAB854EB4304D#fndtn-information
Primary URL Description: Cambridge book website
Secondary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1088347719
Secondary URL Description: World cat page for book
Access Model: Book
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9781108663649
Copy sent to NEH?: No

“Memorializing Sorrow in Frances Burney’s ‘Consolatory Extracts'" (Article)
Title: “Memorializing Sorrow in Frances Burney’s ‘Consolatory Extracts'"
Author: Hilary Havens
Abstract: After her beloved sister Susan died on 6 January 1800, Frances Burney wrote several grieving letters, but her ordinarily voluminous journals and letters were markedly scant during the year 1800. Burney expressed her grief later and elsewhere, particularly in her little-known commonplace book, “Consolatory Extracts occasioned by the tragic death of her sister Susan Phillips in January 1800,” which reveals her protracted process of mourning through her appropriation of extracts from A Series of Letters Between Mrs. Elizabeth Carter and Miss Catherine Talbot, from the year 1741 to 1770 (1809) and its composition following her mastectomy in 1811. Many of the themes in “Consolatory Extracts” suggest that Burney’s memorializing of Susan is similarly borne out in her fictional works, particularly her unfinished tragedy Elberta (1785-1814) and her novel The Wanderer (1814).
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://read.dukeupress.edu/eighteenth-century-life
Primary URL Description: Journal website
Access Model: Subscription only / available in print or through Project Muse
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Eighteenth-Century Life
Publisher: Eighteenth-Century Life // Duke University Press

“Maria Edgeworth’s (Deleted) Thoughts on Frances Burney’s Evelina" (Blog Post)
Title: “Maria Edgeworth’s (Deleted) Thoughts on Frances Burney’s Evelina"
Author: Hilary Havens
Abstract: This is a short blog post demonstrating the effectiveness of my methodologies in digital paleography to recover deleted text. I look at a letter from the author Maria Edgeworth about her impressions of Frances Burney's _Evelina_, which was a famous contemporary novel.
Date: 10/7/2016
Primary URL: http://web.archive.org/web/20180331004915/http://www.aphrabehn.org/ABO/maria-edgeworths-deleted-thoughts-on-frances-burneys-evelina/
Primary URL Description: The site of the invited blog post, which can only be viewed in the "wayback machine" since the original site is not available.
Secondary URL: http://www.aphrabehn.org/ABO/maria-edgeworths-deleted-thoughts-on-frances-burneys-evelina/
Secondary URL Description: The original site, which is currently down.
Blog Title: Aphra Behn Online Public: An Interactive Forum for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830
Website: Aphra Behn Online Public: An Interactive Forum for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

William Godwin’s Correspondence on Proof Corrections to St. Leon (Article)
Title: William Godwin’s Correspondence on Proof Corrections to St. Leon
Author: Hilary Havens
Abstract: Reveals that William Godwin's proof corrections for St. Leon were not implemented in a later edition of the novel and Godwin's correspondence with the printer related to this.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/notesj/gjaa148
Primary URL Description: DOI link
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Notes and Queries

“‘How is our Blue club cut up!’: Frances Burney’s Changing Views of the Bluestockings” (Article)
Title: “‘How is our Blue club cut up!’: Frances Burney’s Changing Views of the Bluestockings”
Author: Hilary Havens
Abstract: Examines Frances Burney's changing view of the Bluestocking circle through the lens of several of her fictions and life writings.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://read.dukeupress.edu/eighteenth-century-life/issue
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Eighteenth-Century Life
Publisher: Duke UP

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