A Simple Story is a novel by English author and actress, Elizabeth Inchbald. Published in early 1791 as an early example of a "novel of passion", it was very successful and became widely read in England and abroad. It went into a second edition in March 1791. It is still in print today. The novel is divided into four books, two each devoted to its two storylines. The first two books follow the love story of young Miss Milner (we are never told her first name) and her guardian Dorriforth, a Roman Catholic priest, who later renounces his holy orders on inheriting an aristocratic title and marries Miss Milner. The last two books, set some seventeen or eighteen years later, follow the troubled relationship of Dorriforth (now Lord Elmwood) and his daughter Matilda, whom he has excluded from his life following his wife's adulterous affair and death. The book touches on issues including the education of women, Catholicism, sensibility, and gender roles................... Elizabeth Inchbald (née Simpson) (1753-1821) was an English novelist, actress, and dramatist.Her two novels are still read today. Written work: Due to success as a playwright, Inchbald did not need the financial support of a husband and did not remarry. Between 1784 and 1805 she had 19 of her comedies, sentimental dramas, and farces (many of them translations from the French) performed at London theatres. Her first play to be performed was A Mogul Tale, in which she played the leading feminine role of Selina. In 1780, she joined the Covent Garden Company and played a breeches role in Philaster as Bellarion. Inchbald had a few of her plays produced such as Appearance is Against Them (1785), Such Things Are (1787), and Everyone Has Fault (1793). Some of her other plays such as A Mogul Tale (1784) and I'll Tell You What (1785) were produced at the Haymarket Theatre. Eighteen of her plays were published, though she wrote several more; the exact number is in dispute though most recent commentators claim between 21 and 23. Her two novels have been frequently reprinted. She also did considerable editorial and critical work. Her literary start began with writing for The Artist and Edinburgh Review.[6] A four-volume autobiography was destroyed before her death upon the advice of her confessor, but she left some of her diaries. The latter are currently held at the Folger Shakespeare Library and an edition was recently published. Her play Lovers' Vows (1798) was featured as a focus of moral controversy by Jane Austen in her novel Mansfield Park. After her success, she felt she needed to give something back to London society, and decided in 1805 to try being a theatre critic. A political radical and friend of William Godwin and Thomas Holcroft, her political beliefs can more easily be found in her novels than in her plays, due to the constrictive environment of the patent theatres of Georgian London.[8] "Inchbald's life was marked by tensions between, on the one hand, political radicalism, a passionate nature evidently attracted to a number of her admirers, and a love of independence, and on the other hand, a desire for social respectability and a strong sense of the emotional attraction of authority figures."[4] She died on 1 August 1821 in Kensington and is buried in the churchyard of St Mary Abbots.[9] On her gravestone it states, "Whose writings will be cherished while truth, simplicity, and feelings, command public admiration." In 1833, a two-volume Memoirs of Mrs. Inchbald by James Boaden was published by Richard Bentley. In recent decades Inchbald has been the subject of increasing critical interest, particularly among scholars investigating women's writing.
