Simple Story, A by Elizabeth Inchbald

Abstract

A Simple Story (1791), a novel in four volumes, fuses the sentimental fiction of the earlier eighteenth century with the Gothic novel of the 1790s. In volumes one and two, Miss Milner, a beautiful and quick-witted coquette, joins the household of her guardian Dorriforth, a Roman Catholic priest. He tries to reform her rebellious ways and settle her in marriage, but she repeatedly challenges his authority. Meanwhile, Dorriforth inherits an earldom from a deceased cousin and becomes Lord Elmwood after receiving a papal dispensation freeing him from his vows. Following their “various, though delicate struggles for power” (Inchbald 1791, 151), Elmwood and Miss Milner marry at the end of volume two. Volumes three and four take place seventeen years later, with the couple’s happy ending thoroughly undone. After giving birth to their daughter Matilda, Lady Elmwood has an affair while Elmwood is in the West Indies; she flees his household in shame and dies. Although Elmwood refuses to see or speak to Matilda, he allows her to live in Elmwood Castle, and she longs for his acknowledgment. After Matilda is kidnapped by Lord Margrave, Elmwood rescues her and assumes his role as her father. Volume four ends with Matilda’s marriage to Elmwood’s heir and nephew Henry Rushbrook. The novel’s themes – women’s education, gender performance, and Catholicism in England – as well as its generic hybridity reflect the changing societal conditions and literary conventions of the later eighteenth century, and its lively characters and engaging dialogue reflect Inchbald’s skill as a dramatist.