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The Heroine, Or, Adventures of a Fair Romance Reader
"I finished The Heroine last night and was very much amused by it. It diverted me exceedingly. I have torn through the third volume; I do not think it falls off. It is a delightful burlesque..." - Jane Austen
" Everybody has read [ The Heroine ]. There is no one so superlatively unhappy as not to have done this thing. But if such there be - if by any possibility such person should exist, we have only a few words to say to him. Go, silly man, and purchase forthwith ' The or Adventures of Cherubina .' There are few books written with more tact, spirit, näiveté, or grace, [...] and none more fairly entitled to rank among the classics of English literature than the Heroine of Eaton Stannard Barrett." - Edgar Allan Poe, in The Southern Literary Messenger (1835)
Young Cherry Wilkinson, the daughter of a farmer, has read one too many Gothic novels. And when she discovers a mysterious fragment of parchment and an antiquated portrait in her father's desk, she becomes convinced that she is a heroine and an heiress, and that the farmer is not her father, but instead an assassin with designs upon her life. Renaming herself Cherubina, she deserts her home and sets off on a mad romp across England, determined to recover her lost domains and unravel her true parentage. But after a series of madcap and hilarious adventures, she comes to find that modern-day English law and society do not always permit a young lady to behave like a character out of a romantic tale. And when a handsome but dissolute young actor learns of Cherry's father's wealth and her mania for Gothic novels and styles himself Lord Montmorenci in an attempt to deceive her into a marriage, Cherubina will need all of her heroine's wit to defeat the nefarious plot! A brilliant comic novel that went through numerous editions in its time and earned widespread critical acclaim, The Heroine (1813) has recently been badly neglected and has been out of print for almost a century. This edition features a substantial new introduction by internationally known Gothic scholars Avril Horner and Sue Zlosnik, the unabridged text of the first edition, and detailed endnotes.
" Everybody has read [ The Heroine ]. There is no one so superlatively unhappy as not to have done this thing. But if such there be - if by any possibility such person should exist, we have only a few words to say to him. Go, silly man, and purchase forthwith ' The or Adventures of Cherubina .' There are few books written with more tact, spirit, näiveté, or grace, [...] and none more fairly entitled to rank among the classics of English literature than the Heroine of Eaton Stannard Barrett." - Edgar Allan Poe, in The Southern Literary Messenger (1835)
Young Cherry Wilkinson, the daughter of a farmer, has read one too many Gothic novels. And when she discovers a mysterious fragment of parchment and an antiquated portrait in her father's desk, she becomes convinced that she is a heroine and an heiress, and that the farmer is not her father, but instead an assassin with designs upon her life. Renaming herself Cherubina, she deserts her home and sets off on a mad romp across England, determined to recover her lost domains and unravel her true parentage. But after a series of madcap and hilarious adventures, she comes to find that modern-day English law and society do not always permit a young lady to behave like a character out of a romantic tale. And when a handsome but dissolute young actor learns of Cherry's father's wealth and her mania for Gothic novels and styles himself Lord Montmorenci in an attempt to deceive her into a marriage, Cherubina will need all of her heroine's wit to defeat the nefarious plot! A brilliant comic novel that went through numerous editions in its time and earned widespread critical acclaim, The Heroine (1813) has recently been badly neglected and has been out of print for almost a century. This edition features a substantial new introduction by internationally known Gothic scholars Avril Horner and Sue Zlosnik, the unabridged text of the first edition, and detailed endnotes.
372 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1813
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 30, 2023
To understand this book it helps to have a thorough grounding in English popular fiction of the late eighteenth century, for it is a spoof—often very pointed—of the absurdities so prevalent in that fiction. I was familiar with some but not all of the works the author played off of and often wished for a more thorough grounding. The author also had a career as a critic of Whig politics, and when he made inside jokes in that arena I was even more at sea. Nevertheless, much of the book is funny and it is sometimes hilarious. It was written just after 1810 when the fashion for gothic novels was fading; Jane Austen read and enjoyed it but she must have ground her teeth a bit that her own gothic spoof, Northanger Abbey, composed more than a decade before, remained unpublished. Her work is much subtler than his but both are very clever.
The story is told in a series of letters addressed by a fifteen-year-old girl, Cherry Wilkinson, to her former governess who has been turned off for canoodling with the butler. Cherry is the daughter of a country squire (modern readers might be misled by the references to him as a “farmer”—he is rural gentry, not a yeoman). She has been allowed to read too many romances (by which is meant improbable stories of adventure and persecution, many of them gothic, not what we call “romance” today) and has convinced herself that she is a heroine. No heroine in the mold of gothic fiction could possibly be the daughter of a common country squire, so she convinces herself that she is instead the daughter of a nobleman, separated at birth from her heritage by mysterious circumstances. Informed by her father that an eligible young man, Mr. Stuart, a childhood friend, is coming to visit, she flees the house to escape this prosaic fate and sets off in pursuit of her supposed parents.
She has found a fragmentary document in her father’s study that she takes to be a clue to her identity; on the strength of it she rechristens herself Cherubina, later adding the surname de Willoughby. Off she goes to London, where she encounters a series of rogues, some who end up wishing her well, others who seek to exploit her. Her father turns up but is tricked into a mental institution by one of the exploiters; Stuart also arrives and seeks to control her excesses and keep her relatively safe by appearing to play along with her.
The book is full of clever send-ups of more than just gothic fiction; even poets and more serious novels come in for some very pointed mockery. A brief cameo at the beginning by Don Quixote sets the frame for what is to come. Like most satire, it depends pretty heavily on familiarity with the original for its success. But I found it interesting even when my ignorance betrayed me; the author had a gift for showing us what Cherry was really thinking even when she was telling us something very different, and I wish Barrett had lived longer and undertaken some more serious fiction writing.
The story is told in a series of letters addressed by a fifteen-year-old girl, Cherry Wilkinson, to her former governess who has been turned off for canoodling with the butler. Cherry is the daughter of a country squire (modern readers might be misled by the references to him as a “farmer”—he is rural gentry, not a yeoman). She has been allowed to read too many romances (by which is meant improbable stories of adventure and persecution, many of them gothic, not what we call “romance” today) and has convinced herself that she is a heroine. No heroine in the mold of gothic fiction could possibly be the daughter of a common country squire, so she convinces herself that she is instead the daughter of a nobleman, separated at birth from her heritage by mysterious circumstances. Informed by her father that an eligible young man, Mr. Stuart, a childhood friend, is coming to visit, she flees the house to escape this prosaic fate and sets off in pursuit of her supposed parents.
She has found a fragmentary document in her father’s study that she takes to be a clue to her identity; on the strength of it she rechristens herself Cherubina, later adding the surname de Willoughby. Off she goes to London, where she encounters a series of rogues, some who end up wishing her well, others who seek to exploit her. Her father turns up but is tricked into a mental institution by one of the exploiters; Stuart also arrives and seeks to control her excesses and keep her relatively safe by appearing to play along with her.
The book is full of clever send-ups of more than just gothic fiction; even poets and more serious novels come in for some very pointed mockery. A brief cameo at the beginning by Don Quixote sets the frame for what is to come. Like most satire, it depends pretty heavily on familiarity with the original for its success. But I found it interesting even when my ignorance betrayed me; the author had a gift for showing us what Cherry was really thinking even when she was telling us something very different, and I wish Barrett had lived longer and undertaken some more serious fiction writing.
July 30, 2020
No sé cómo llegué a la Heroína, pero cuando leí "parodia de las novelas góticas de 1813", me dije que tenía que leerla, y no me arrepiento para nada.
¡Qué diversión, qué locura, qué sin parar! La Heroína, recoge la tradición de la novela epistolar para hacer una "bildungsroman" sobre una muchacha que ha leído demasiadas novelas góticas y románticas, y que está dispuesta, aunque el mundo vaya en contra, a ser protagonista de una. Como en el Quijote (al que homenajea, claramente), nustra chica está algo "loca", y eso la hace emprender un viaje que se irá llenando de "bandidos", "malvadas ladies", cárceles, castillos derruidos, poetas, lugares siniestros, aunque la mitad, por supuesto, no sean lo que ella cree, aunque ya hará que se ajusten a su relato. En algunos momentos, tendrá incluso a su Sancho Panza particular, y la aparición de un personaje con cordura a lo Henry Tilney, la ayudará a darse cuenta de que no todo es como ella se imagina o cree que es.
La verdad es que está llena de grandes momentos de humor, guiños a Irlanda, a las novelas (hay que conocer un poco el contexto) e incluso al lector (el prefacio metafísico es maravilloso).
Sólo se me hizo algo larga por el estilo que está escrita en algunos momentos y por la inclusión de algunos poemas (que supongo que harán las delicias de filólogos).
La novela fue leída por Austen y se enlaza (no la he leído pero sí se de qué va) con The Female Quixote de Charlotte Lennox e incluso con Northanger Abbey (que, creedlo o no, es super realista, en comparación).
Una sorpresa, y una obligación para los fans de Northanger Abbey, las novelas góticas o del romanticismo más clásico.
¡Qué diversión, qué locura, qué sin parar! La Heroína, recoge la tradición de la novela epistolar para hacer una "bildungsroman" sobre una muchacha que ha leído demasiadas novelas góticas y románticas, y que está dispuesta, aunque el mundo vaya en contra, a ser protagonista de una. Como en el Quijote (al que homenajea, claramente), nustra chica está algo "loca", y eso la hace emprender un viaje que se irá llenando de "bandidos", "malvadas ladies", cárceles, castillos derruidos, poetas, lugares siniestros, aunque la mitad, por supuesto, no sean lo que ella cree, aunque ya hará que se ajusten a su relato. En algunos momentos, tendrá incluso a su Sancho Panza particular, y la aparición de un personaje con cordura a lo Henry Tilney, la ayudará a darse cuenta de que no todo es como ella se imagina o cree que es.
La verdad es que está llena de grandes momentos de humor, guiños a Irlanda, a las novelas (hay que conocer un poco el contexto) e incluso al lector (el prefacio metafísico es maravilloso).
Sólo se me hizo algo larga por el estilo que está escrita en algunos momentos y por la inclusión de algunos poemas (que supongo que harán las delicias de filólogos).
La novela fue leída por Austen y se enlaza (no la he leído pero sí se de qué va) con The Female Quixote de Charlotte Lennox e incluso con Northanger Abbey (que, creedlo o no, es super realista, en comparación).
Una sorpresa, y una obligación para los fans de Northanger Abbey, las novelas góticas o del romanticismo más clásico.
August 1, 2022
What a read! The Heroine is so stupid and glorious at the same time. I can't give more stars because it was quite dull at times with all the poems and all the character (back)story time.
Jane Austen July 2022: 5. Read a book by a contemporary of Jane Austen.
Jane Austen July 2022: 5. Read a book by a contemporary of Jane Austen.
October 23, 2023
As a parody of a Gothic novel it extremely annoyed me. Cherry or Cherubina as the case may be became boring to me after a short time, and despite her rocambolic adventures, which ended then as Jane Eyre did, of course, she just annoyed me.
Come parodia di un romanzo gotico mi ha estremamente infastidito. Cherry o Cherubina che dir si voglia é per me diventata noiosa dopo poco tempo e nonostante le sue rocambolesche avventure, finite poi come ovvio che sia, mi ha solo infastidito.
Come parodia di un romanzo gotico mi ha estremamente infastidito. Cherry o Cherubina che dir si voglia é per me diventata noiosa dopo poco tempo e nonostante le sue rocambolesche avventure, finite poi come ovvio che sia, mi ha solo infastidito.
March 6, 2016
Si tratta di una versione 'scapigliata' di 'The Female Quixote' di Anne Lennox, con al centro una scatenata aspirante eroina che non bada a nulla e a nessuno pur di portare a termine le sue avventure, a rischio della sua incolumità fisica e morale, e in qualche caso a rischio della vita. La narrazione è pervasa da uno spirito umoristico, talvolta comico, più spesso satirico, e non stupisce che una lettrice esigente come Jane Austen possa avere apprezzato questo brillante meta-romanzo.
January 7, 2024
Do you like to read books that inspired your favorite authors? I do as I feel it gives me a great background on why they made the artistic choices that they did about their novels. This novel was selected as the JASNA Northwoods selection for this month as Jane Austen read and appreciated this book. I also found a great quote from Edgar Allan Poe about it.
"I finished The Heroine last night and was very much amused by it. It diverted me exceedingly. I have torn through the third volume; I do not think it falls off. It is a delightful burlesque..." - Jane Austen
"Everybody has read [The Heroine]. There is no one so superlatively unhappy as not to have done this thing. But if such there be - if by any possibility such person should exist, we have only a few words to say to him. Go, silly man, and purchase forthwith 'The Heroine: or Adventures of Cherubina.' There are few books written with more tact, spirit, näiveté, or grace, [...] and none more fairly entitled to rank among the classics of English literature than the Heroine of Eaton Stannard Barrett." - Edgar Allan Poe, in The Southern Literary Messenger (1835)
With such praise, I was very excited to read this novel on my Kindle. Unfortunately, it was a “did not finish” novel for me. I was not engaged with the story and kept falling asleep whenever I tried to read it. I made it roughly halfway through and decided to move on to a more engaging book.
Cherry Wilkinson is the daughter of a country squire and has read too many Gothic novels. She discovers a scrap of paper with a few words on it that seem to her to mean that she is actually the daughter of a lord. Her father has informed her that an old childhood friend, Stuart, is coming to visit. She sets off to London before he arrives to find her “true identity,” renaming herself Cherubina de Willoughby. She meets an actor and a poet with nefarious purposes, and refuses to return with either her father or Stuart who come to find her. She has over the top adventures and I just kind of gave up on Cherry. It was too over the top for me. This was a popular type of fiction at the time, but I much prefer Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey which is more subtle, better written, and have more believable characters.
We had our book club meeting today and most members, like me, stopped reading it as well. It is an epistolary novel written by Cherry as letters to her governess. Luckily, I was able to find out the ending in book club, and it did end the way I assumed it would.
When do you not finish a book?
Book Source: Purchased on Amazon.com. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
This review was first posted on my blog at: https://lauragerold.blogspot.com/2024...
"I finished The Heroine last night and was very much amused by it. It diverted me exceedingly. I have torn through the third volume; I do not think it falls off. It is a delightful burlesque..." - Jane Austen
"Everybody has read [The Heroine]. There is no one so superlatively unhappy as not to have done this thing. But if such there be - if by any possibility such person should exist, we have only a few words to say to him. Go, silly man, and purchase forthwith 'The Heroine: or Adventures of Cherubina.' There are few books written with more tact, spirit, näiveté, or grace, [...] and none more fairly entitled to rank among the classics of English literature than the Heroine of Eaton Stannard Barrett." - Edgar Allan Poe, in The Southern Literary Messenger (1835)
With such praise, I was very excited to read this novel on my Kindle. Unfortunately, it was a “did not finish” novel for me. I was not engaged with the story and kept falling asleep whenever I tried to read it. I made it roughly halfway through and decided to move on to a more engaging book.
Cherry Wilkinson is the daughter of a country squire and has read too many Gothic novels. She discovers a scrap of paper with a few words on it that seem to her to mean that she is actually the daughter of a lord. Her father has informed her that an old childhood friend, Stuart, is coming to visit. She sets off to London before he arrives to find her “true identity,” renaming herself Cherubina de Willoughby. She meets an actor and a poet with nefarious purposes, and refuses to return with either her father or Stuart who come to find her. She has over the top adventures and I just kind of gave up on Cherry. It was too over the top for me. This was a popular type of fiction at the time, but I much prefer Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey which is more subtle, better written, and have more believable characters.
We had our book club meeting today and most members, like me, stopped reading it as well. It is an epistolary novel written by Cherry as letters to her governess. Luckily, I was able to find out the ending in book club, and it did end the way I assumed it would.
When do you not finish a book?
Book Source: Purchased on Amazon.com. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
This review was first posted on my blog at: https://lauragerold.blogspot.com/2024...
June 6, 2023
That was ridiculously funny. That was actual laugh-out-loud, up there with P.G. Wodehouse funny. That was full-on picaresque farce with added slapstick. Yes, it’s an early nineteenth century novel, but don’t let that put you off; it may be old but it’s really light reading. And funny; did I mention funny? I did? Good. You don’t need to have read, to take an example chosen not entirely at random, The Mysteries of Udolpho to enjoy it, although I suppose I ought to mention that it gives away one of Udolpho’s more disappointing mysteries. When I’ve loaded up on a bit more Georgian lit, I might have to go round again.
The Heroine is an epistolary novel consisting of an introduction and forty-nine letters written in the persona of Cherry Wilkinson, the daughter of a prosperous farmer who, having read too many romantic and gothic novels, convinces herself she’s actually Cherubina de Willoughby, disinherited aristocrat. Think Don Quixote, think Malicia Grim, think anyone in what seems almost a genre in its own right – the book with a main character convinced they’re the star of their own show…
I wonder if anyone’s writing those now? I can sort of see the teenager who thinks she’s living in a young adult dystopia making quite a good subject for a book. I think I’d read that.
Anyway…
If I’m going to be ultra picky, then I’d say the ending of The Heroine is a bit off – Eaton Stannard Barrett (just one lawyer, not a whole firm) had to drop the comedy for the last few letters to stop it from turning into tragedy – but that’s really nit-picking. The thing is brilliant: worth it for the condensed Radcliffian drama of letter XXXI alone.
Adieu.
The Heroine is an epistolary novel consisting of an introduction and forty-nine letters written in the persona of Cherry Wilkinson, the daughter of a prosperous farmer who, having read too many romantic and gothic novels, convinces herself she’s actually Cherubina de Willoughby, disinherited aristocrat. Think Don Quixote, think Malicia Grim, think anyone in what seems almost a genre in its own right – the book with a main character convinced they’re the star of their own show…
I wonder if anyone’s writing those now? I can sort of see the teenager who thinks she’s living in a young adult dystopia making quite a good subject for a book. I think I’d read that.
Anyway…
If I’m going to be ultra picky, then I’d say the ending of The Heroine is a bit off – Eaton Stannard Barrett (just one lawyer, not a whole firm) had to drop the comedy for the last few letters to stop it from turning into tragedy – but that’s really nit-picking. The thing is brilliant: worth it for the condensed Radcliffian drama of letter XXXI alone.
Adieu.
July 8, 2020
I myself will admit to having laughed aloud several times while reading it. The Heroine follows the adventures of the self-styled Cherubina de Willoughby as she manages by turns to be clever, silly, naive, rude, and self-absorbed in her quest to become a heroine just like those she has read about in novels--all the usual suspects--Mysteries of Udolpho, the Monk, The Italian, Pamela, etc. There is a 2011 edition available, but through the magic of print on demand, you can also get the 1909 version with an introduction by Walter Raleigh, which is the one I read.
For fans of gothic and/or parody, this book is fantastic.
Full review at https://readerly.net/2020/07/05/the-h...
For fans of gothic and/or parody, this book is fantastic.
Full review at https://readerly.net/2020/07/05/the-h...
October 30, 2023
Disclaimer, I am very literal including when I'm reading. I often don't "get" satire and parodies. I did not enjoy this book in the least. The main character Cherubina was young and beyond selfish. Her antics hurt people emotionally. She had her father put into a madhouse, broke up a young couple who were to be married within days and stole from a relative.
When I read I want to like the protagonist, but I did not in this case. She very much reminded me of Holly Golightly. For me, this read was an absolute waste of time.
When I read I want to like the protagonist, but I did not in this case. She very much reminded me of Holly Golightly. For me, this read was an absolute waste of time.
May 12, 2020
A constant train of hilarity and craziness, with wit reminiscent of Heyer and Austen but with less reserve. The heroine was both admirable and slappable, and though the end was a little lackluster, I still felt that she got what she deserved.
January 18, 2020
A hilarious comedic jibe at the gothic genre.
June 29, 2026
Hilariously and delightfully cringe-inducing, until the actually super cringy chauvinist polemic at the end.
May 11, 2012
I didn't read the OCR edition cited above, but the 1927 edition with an introduction by Michael Sadleir. The Heroine predates Northanger Abbey and is a satire on (mostly) the Gothic romances popular at the time, though there are many quotes and glancing references to other, more mainstream works. It's quite a funny pile o' pastiches, as our Heroine Cherubina de Willoughby (nee Cherry Wilkinson) quixotes about England trying to reclaim her lost heritage, a lovely derelict castle. She narrates it all in a series of letters to her former governess, each skewering a different style of novel popular at the time.
For the most part the target is the Gothick or the sentimental novel, but also hits what we'd now call science fiction or fantasy. The book opens with an epistle dated "The Moon, May 1, 1813" from the fictional character to the reader. It explains that whenever a manuscript is completed on earth, the characters therein, whether based on imagination or on historical fact, become living creatures on the moon. In fact, all the landscape and artifacts of the moon are based on written descriptions and catalogues. (I deeply want to tie this in with the Chinese practice of burning paper models of possessions & clothing for the ancestors, but doubt Barrett knew about that.)
Late in the book Cherubina discourses with a supposed ghost, who explains that the departed spirits have their abode within "this very globe," which is "a round crust, about ten miles thick; and the concave inside is furnished just like the convex outside, with wood, water, vale and mountain. In the centre stands a nice little golden Sun, about the size of a pippin, and lights our internal world ..."
For the most part the target is the Gothick or the sentimental novel, but also hits what we'd now call science fiction or fantasy. The book opens with an epistle dated "The Moon, May 1, 1813" from the fictional character to the reader. It explains that whenever a manuscript is completed on earth, the characters therein, whether based on imagination or on historical fact, become living creatures on the moon. In fact, all the landscape and artifacts of the moon are based on written descriptions and catalogues. (I deeply want to tie this in with the Chinese practice of burning paper models of possessions & clothing for the ancestors, but doubt Barrett knew about that.)
Late in the book Cherubina discourses with a supposed ghost, who explains that the departed spirits have their abode within "this very globe," which is "a round crust, about ten miles thick; and the concave inside is furnished just like the convex outside, with wood, water, vale and mountain. In the centre stands a nice little golden Sun, about the size of a pippin, and lights our internal world ..."
February 7, 2014
It is, fundamentally, satirizing a form of literature that I value, so I can't help being disappointed in its ending, but the banditti Stiletto, Poignardi, and Daggeroni are worth five stars on their own. I genuinely laughed out loud at this book, several times-- so much so that I couldn't continue reading. And the introduction is just lovely.
May 22, 2008
This book is a highly amusing parody of the Romantic-era gothic novel and (perhaps unintentionally) of female quixotism. If you can get your hands on it, it's a good read.
March 20, 2011
An excellent companion piece to Northanger Abbey, or to any of the "coming-of-age" novels of the late 18th/early 19th century.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews