As “the most prolific British woman writer of the eighteenth century,” Eliza Haywood was forced to examine her authorial intent in the face of an onslaught of personal attacks by her male contemporaries (Saxton 2, 8). Alexander Pope’s The Dunciad (1728) remains the most well-known public critique of Haywood’s writing – “shameless,” “scandalous,” and “licentious” … Continue reading “Haywood and the Reading Public: Reclaiming Femininity and Didactic Expression from Fantomina to Besty Thoughtless” by Hanna Warsame