P-Wave Classics – serie

A spirited heroine. A dangerous flirtation. A society unwilling to forgive.Published anonymously in 1797, The Coquette quickly became one of the most widely read novels of early America. Inspired by the real-life story of Elizabeth Whitman—an intelligent and accomplished young woman whose tragic death became a national scandal—Hannah Webster Foster’s epistolary novel explores the pressures placed on women in a world that offers them few real choices.Eliza Wharton is recently released from an unwanted engagement and eager to enjoy her freedom. But her charm and independence attract unwanted scrutiny, especially when she becomes the object of attention from both a respectable clergyman and a dangerously attractive libertine. As the letters fly and public judgement closes in, Eliza’s story becomes a subtle but powerful meditation on reputation, agency and the human cost of social conformity.This P-Wave Classics edition includes:The full text of Foster’s original 1797 novelThe 1855 Historical Preface by Jane E. LockeCaroline Wells Healey Dall’s 1875 response, The Romance of the AssociationTogether, they offer a rare glimpse into the literary afterlife of The Coquette and the fierce cultural debate surrounding the woman who inspired it.Edited with notes and an introduction by L.A. Davenport.

A radical outsider, a fearless heroine and a society laid bareVolume I of a three-volume editionFirst published in 1796, Robert Bage’s Hermsprong; or, Man as He is Not is a daring novel of social satire and progressive thought. Hermsprong, an American-raised gentleman untouched by Britain’s rigid class system, confronts the corruption, pretension and hypocrisy of the English elite.At the centre of the story is Maria Fluart, one of the most striking heroines of the age. Witty, outspoken and unafraid to challenge the men around her—even brandishing a pistol when pressed—she embodies a spirited independence rarely seen in fiction of the period.Bage himself was admired by Sir Walter Scott, yet Hermsprong has long been overlooked. Satirical and humane, it offers a fearless defence of equality, sincerity and freedom of thought.This new three-volume P-Wave Classics edition features an original introduction and extensive notes, situating Bage’s remarkable novel in the ferment of the late Enlightenment and the early Romantic age.Edited with notes and an introduction by L.A. Davenport.This volume contains the Biographical Introduction, Editorial Note and the opening volume of the novel.

A romantic dreamer, a sceptical world and the perilous power of booksVolume I of a two-volume editionFirst published in 1752, Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote; or, The Adventures of Arabella is one of the great comic novels of the eighteenth century. In Volume I of this restored two-volume edition, Arabella, the daughter of a marquess, forms her understanding of life and love from the heroic romances of seventeenth-century France. Convinced that noble suitors, desperate rivalries, and perilous adventures await her, she moves through the modern world guided by the logic of an earlier age, leaving confusion and fascination in her wake.Celebrated by Samuel Johnson and admired by Henry Fielding, Lennox’s novel is far more than a lively parody. It is a subtle and perceptive exploration of how reading shapes imagination, expectation, and desire, and of the freedoms and constraints placed upon women in eighteenth-century society. Arabella emerges as one of the most original heroines in English fiction: intellectually formidable, morally serious, and magnificently out of step with her time.This P-Wave Classics edition restores the novel in its original form, presenting a carefully established text based on the 1752 edition, with modernised spelling for clarity. Volume I includes a new introduction, an essay on The World of French Romance, and a detailed Glossary of the Romance World, offering readers a rich guide to the literary universe that shaped Arabella’s mind.Edited with notes and an introduction by L.A. Davenport.