The Duchess of Devonshire is remembered most often for her scandalous marriage and for her proto-feminist involvement in politics. Born Lady Georgiana Spencer, she was also widely known for her support of female artists and writers, including the actress turned author, Mary Darby Robinson. Her first novel, The Sylph, which was published anonymously in 1779, explores the life and marriage of an aristocratic woman as she navigates the fashionable world, and carries within it resonances of Georgiana’s own experiences and disappointments.
Synopsis
The novel tells the story of Julia Grenville, the daughter of a reclusive widower, who marries the older Lord Stanley. Written in epistolary style, the narrative is told primarily through Julia’s letters to her sister Louisa, and charts Julia’s disillusionment from her first experiences as a naive young bride with no knowledge of the demi-monde to her discovery of her husband’s infidelity and his gambling away of her dowry.
As Julia gains knowledge of her husband’s profligate ways, she begins gambling as a way of coping with her pain and disenchantment with the vice and superficiality of the fashionable world. She soon develops an addiction, and just when it seems she will follow in her husband’s example of infidelity, she begins receiving anonymous letters of advice from “The Sylph.” The Sylph identifies him-or herself as one of those guardian angel spirits made most famous in Alexander Pope’s mock epic poem, The Rape of the Lock. She or he offers Julia advice and support and helps steer her moral compass in the face of her husband’s descent into depravity.
When Lord Stanley’s gambling debts provide fodder for the machinations of one of his ill-intentioned colleagues, who seeks to seduce Julia, Lord Stanley signs away his right as her husband. Before Julia can be disgraced, however, Lord Stanley commits suicide and she returns home to her father and sister. While in self-imposed exile, Julia discovers that her Sylph is the Baron Ton-hausen, in whom she had unfulfilled romantic interest; the Baron furthermore reveals himself to be Harry Woodley, a longtime admirer from her youth. The novel ends with virtue rewarded and vice thwarted.
The Novel’s Success and Anonymous Authorship
The novel went through four editions very quickly. Because of its success and widespread audience, Georgiana’s anonymity did not last long. Moreover, there are references to the Devonshire House circle, easily recognizable to Georgiana’s friends and associates, sprinkled liberally throughout the book.
Once her identity became known, Georgiana endured criticism from some who thought that the novel was immoral, obscene, and highly inappropriate from a young lady in her position. Moreover, some critics, picking up on the echoes of the unfortunate events that Georgiana herself faced, decried the novel as immodest. Nevertheless, its scathing critique of the aristocracy made the novel very popular.
A Glimpse of the Lives of Eighteenth-Century Women
Though not a resounding technical achievement, the novel, like many others penned by anonymous or pseudonymous female authors, is worth study because of what it reveals about the position of women in eighteenth-century Britain. In Julia’s world, like Georgiana’s, women had very few rights, not even over their own person. This novel paints a disturbing portrait of the potential consequences of such subjugation. As a cultural artifact, this novel provides an invaluable register of legal, social and cultural practices and mores. The novel reminds today's reader of the gendered barriers that women, even highly accomplished political activists such as Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, face and overcome.
References
Devonshire, Georgiana, Duchess of. The Sylph. 1779. Intro and ed., Amanda Foreman. York: Henry Parker, 2001.
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