Fantomina, or, Love in a Maze is a novella by Eliza Haywood which charts an unnamed female protagonist’s pursuit of the charming, shallow Beauplaisir. Dealing with major themes such as identity, class and sexual desire, and first published in 1725, Fantomina subverts the popular ‘persecuted maiden’ narrative, and reaches a climax which would have shocked its contemporary readership. Moving to London, a young woman – let’s call her Fantomina – meets a dashing man at the theatre. After a short, but intense, fling, Beauplaisir grows bored of Fantomina, and leaves her. Outraged that she should be so treated, Fantomina discards her disguise in favour of another, and sets off in hot pursuit of her victim, and a game of cat and mouse begins. This edition features an introduction by Dr Sarah R. Creel, Bethany E. Qualls and Dr Anna K. Sagal of the International Eliza Haywood Society.
Author Biography:
Eliza Fowler Haywood (c.1693-1756), was a writer, actress and publisher. Largely neglected for two hundred years, Haywood attracted a surge of interest in the 1980s, and is now understood to be one of founders of the novel form, as well as a nurturer of important authors, including Susannah Centlivre. Haywood was a prolific writer, but is best remembered today for her first published work, Love in Excess, or, The Fatal Enquiry, which appeared in the same year as Robinson Crusoe was published, the short novella Fantomina, or, Love in a Maze and The Anti-Pamela, or, Feign'd Innocence Detected, a sizzling retort to Samuel Richardson's Pamela, or, Virtue Rewarded. Dr Sarah Creel is the Lead Academic Writing Instructor and Director of the Research Communication Certificate in the Graduate School at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Sarah has over 13 years of research and teaching experience in higher education and a particular love for Eliza Haywood, and is an officer of the International Eliza Haywood Society. She’s published on Haywood in a variety of mediums from the Modern Language Association to online journals and academic blogs. Her current work on female boxers of the eighteenth century is forthcoming in English Studies. She fervently believes that Haywood should be accessible to all. Bethany E. Qualls is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Davis, where she teaches literature and writing courses. She’s spent the past two decades in a variety of writing and editorial roles, including as a general academic and textual editor for The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Bethany’s research focuses on eighteenth-century print culture, gossip, prostitute narratives, graphic satire, seriality and fashion. She delights in Eliza Haywood’s many strange works, is an officer of the International Eliza Haywood Society, and has an essay forthcoming on Haywood’s 1725 The Tea-Table in the Routledge collection A Spy on Haywood. Dr Anna (Katie) Sagal has been teaching eighteenth-century British literature and writing to undergraduates for the past decade and has quite often convinced her students to read Fantomina, much to their delight. She is the Vice President of the International Eliza Haywood Society and her published writing on women’s literature has included multiple articles on Eliza Haywood’s clever strategies for female opportunity and empowerment. Major research projects also focus on women’s scientific writing and art of the eighteenth century. Dr Sagal’s book, Botanical Entanglements: Women, Plants, Literature, and Artwork in the Eighteenth Century is forthcoming from the University of Virginia Press in Autumn 2021. Unsurprisingly, the very first chapter is about Eliza Haywood.
