Novels are books “written chiefly to the Young, the Ignorant, and the Idle, to whom they serve as Lectures of Conduct, and Introductions into Life. They are the Entertainment of Minds unfurnished with Ideas, and therefore easily susceptible of Impressions; not fixed by Principles, and therefore easily following the Current of Fancy; not informed by Experience, and consequently open to every false Suggestion and partial Account.” —Samuel Johnson, Rambler No. 4 (1750)

Pictorial satire on female readers of Gothic by James Gillray (1802)

“Are the duties of life so changed, that all the instructions necessary for a young person is to learn to walk at night upon the battlements of an old castle, to creep hands and feet along a narrow passage, and meet the devil at the end of it? […] Can a young lady be taught nothing more necessary in life, than to sleep in a dungeon with venomous reptiles, walk through a ward with assassins, and carry bloody daggers in their [sic.] pockets, instead of pin-cushions and needle-books?” —from an anonymous 1797 essay criticizing Gothic novels for their harmful effects on young female readers

“As an inducement to subscribe [to her library] Mrs. Martin tells us that her Collection is not to consist only of Novels, but of every kind of Literature, &c. &c—She might have spared this pretension to our family, who are great Novel-readers & not ashamed of being so;—but it was necessary I suppose to the self-consequence of half her Subscribers.” —a 1798 letter from Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra

Excerpt from Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792): “My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone. I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists—I wish to persuade women to endeavour to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous eptithets of weakness.”

Excerpt from Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792): “Confined then in cages like the feathered race, they have nothing to do but to plume themselves, and stalk with majesty from perch to perch. It is true that they are provided with food and raiment, for which they neither toil nor spin, but health, liberty, and virtue are given in exchange.”

Catherine had nothing to oppose against such reasoning; and therefore, to show the independence of Miss Thorpe, and her resolution of humbling the sex, they set off immediately as fast as they could walk, in pursuit of the two young men. (31)

Isabella was very sure that he must be a charming young man, and was equally sure that he must have been delighted with her dear Catherine, and would therefore shortly return. She liked him the better for being a clergyman, ‘for she must confess herself very partial to the profession’ (24)

free-indirect discourse: technique that merges the character’s thoughts or speech with the authorial voice