Euphemia

Book excerpt: Charlotte Lennox’s Euphemia, published in 1790 at the end of her professional career, is an extraordinary account of pre-Revolutionary America from a woman’s perspective. Constructed from letters between Euphemia Neville and her friend Maria Harley, the novel tells the story of Euphemia’s marriage to a thoughtless, arrogant man. During the years Euphemia lives in New York City and at the forts at Albany and Schenectady as the wife of a British army officer, she chronicles in her letters to Maria both her private life and how that life intersects with those of other British men and women, as well as the Dutch, Native American, and African American inhabitants of the colony. Set partially in New York State, where Lennox had herself lived as a girl, it also contains a version of a captivity narrative in the story of the capture of Euphemia’s son by Hurons. This Broadview edition includes contemporary reviews of Euphemia and a wealth of other contemporary materials on marriage, travel, the picturesque, and the captivity narrative.