An Early American Novel The Coquette and its Ideological Implication

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to show the real-life processes going on in the United States achieved by means of investigating fiction and historical sources. For this, I refer to an American novel, not much know to contemporary readers, Hannah Webster Foster’s The Coquette; or, The History of Eliza Wharton (published in 1797). Foster published her novel anonymously under the penname; it did not appear under the author’s real name until her death.