Adventures of Eovaai

by Eliza Fowler Haywood

Haywood’s novel is the story of the beautiful Princess Eovaai. Groomed for the throne by her father, who teaches her Lockean notions of liberty, she is overthrown, enmeshed in civil war, and then magically transported to a foreign land by an evil man. Part magician, part politician, he plots to marry her for political reasons. The fascinating reflexive structure of The Adventures of Eovaai incorporates argumentative intrusions (by the Translator, an Historian, etc.), interweaves political and amatory storylines, and blends a wild mix of genres.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, 18th Century, Ebooks

243 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1736

About the author

Eliza Haywood (1693 – 1756), born Elizabeth Fowler, was an English writer, actress and publisher. Since the 1980s, Eliza Haywood’s literary works have been gaining in recognition and interest. Described as “prolific even by the standards of a prolific age” (Blouch, intro 7), Haywood wrote and published over seventy works during her lifetime including fiction, drama, translations, poetry, conduct literature and periodicals. Haywood is a significant figure of the 18th century as one of the important founders of the novel in English. Today she is studied primarily as a novelist.

Reviews

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A completely bonkers and brilliantly experimental work of political satire/fantasy fiction first published in 1736. Throw out all your preconceptions of what a novel is supposed to be and to do. Haywood doesn't care about such things. Just let it be the weird and wonderful boundary-smashing thing that it is. It's no wonder that Haywood was one of the great early bestsellers of fiction in English. She recognizes no limits and she's wonderful.

[Alejandro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost completely incomprehensible, but what I did understand I did enjoy. I would’ve thought Eovaai would have more of a role in the story, though.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wonderfully weird. If you like postmodern inter/meta-textual fiction with complex framing devices (If on a winter's night a traveler, Pale Fire, etcetera) it might be worth your time to look backwards a little bit to the wildly inventive ways that novelists were developing and innovating on these techniques in the first half of the eighteenth century. And, while a lot of people are at least dimly aware of the purported 'surprising modernism' of works like Clarissa, Eliza Haywood, among many other (mostly female) novelists of the period gets much less attention for her distinctly more peculiar experimentations in these directions.

Eovaai is, as the introduction to this or any other edition will tell you, a political satire, with roots in Haywood's Toryist views and her opposition to Prime Minister Walpole. It's okay, though - you don't need to get the political references to appreciate the novel; I certainly didn't, not without reading a bunch of secondary literature afterwards. Eovaai is also presented to us as an abridged, many-times translated history from a lost 'Pre-Adamitic' age, interspersed with the cranky, judgmental comments of the history's most recent translator, a Chinese immigrant living in London (fair warning: there's more than a bit of orientalism throughout). While this premise isn't played out with quite the virtuosic dazzle that someone like Nabokov might bring to it, that's definitely the kind of comparison we should be reaching for when talking about Haywood's layers of meta-textual artifice in this work. It also involves magic jewels, evil magicians, lustful women who are transformed into monkeys, yearning lovers separated by political obligation, and a wise, pure-hearted princess who must return to the throne in order to preserve her kingdom. Who could ask for anything more?

[Lesya · Rating 2 out of 5]

H u h
Historically interesting but... H U H

[Adam Stevenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Adventures of Eovaai immediately caught my attention by being one of the stranger titled works of one of my favourite eighteenth century authors, Eliza Haywood, someone who writes with a strange, over the top quality in itself. It’s a weird blend of fantasy, political satire and amatory novel which I found less consistently enjoyable than other works but it had its moments.

The book was initially published anonymously despite Haywood being a big name, presumably to aid the pretence that this is the work of a translator, bringing a work that has been long studied in China and which took place before the Garden of Eden. The second edition, which came out four years later, has her name on the cover. It may also be that publishing this book anonymously was a way to avoid the consequences of a story which casts the famously litigious ‘prime minister’ of the country as the villain.


Eovaai is a princess who has been raised to be a fair and compassionate ruler. When her father dies, he gives her a magic jewel which keeps both the kingdom and ruler safe. The jewel is kept safe by being set in a necklace but interested in an inscription on the other side, she proses it out where it is promptly stolen by a bird. Being the Queen who lost the jewel, her authority is diminished and the country descends into civil war, not only that but she is not personally protected and is easily taken by the wizard Ochihatou.

If the fact that Ochihatou was the sole/prime minister of a neighbouring country doesn’t ring Robert Walpole alarms, the fact that the first sentence about him describes him as ‘The Great Man’ should. The word ‘great’ was long established as describing Walpole by this point and would be the whole crux of Fielding’s later novel Jonathan Wild, in which the main joke is that greatness is the enemy of goodness. Haywood, not the subtlest of writers, makes her Walpole stand-in, Ochihatou, truly odious. He is ugly, bent and deformed but uses his nefarious magic to create what Doctor Who would describe as a perception filter around him. Using this borrowed stateliness and charm he worms into the King of Hyptofa’s court and bewitches him with a magic feather. Thus in power he lines his own pockets with unfair taxes, creates a standing army to strong-arm opponents and fills all key roles with family and sycophants - all things Walpole’s enemies accused him of. He even almost manages to seduce Eovaai but is interrupted by court business.

At this point the book is interrupted by the story of Yximilla, and here I think it becomes very clear how much fun Haywood is having naming her distant countries and people. Yximilla is a queen in love with the noble Yamatalallabec (the best name in the book) but the evil Boscomon, king of a small principality, has teamed up with the ferocious queen Tygrinonniple to invade Yximilla’s country of Ginksy, force her to marry him and rule together. Yximilla calls on Osiphronoropho, the King of Fayoul to help her but he is too far away to launch an immediate campaign. From this paragraph alone, I think it’s clear how the names, while fun really do send the reader’s eyes swimming and the complex war/political story that plays out with them in not helped by that fact. It’s not a happy ending for Yximilla, she is captured, drugged and dragged to the altar where she is forced to marry - ending any hope for her and ending the little interlude.

Ochichatou has been called to court to advise on what his country should do about the situation and when he returns, Eovaai has escaped by being whisked away by a good spirit. She finds herself still in the land of Hypotofa and sees how ruined it has become by Ochihatou’s bad management. Then she enters the stronghold of the resistance and hears a long speech by the leader of the patriots. Not so incidentally, the Patriots were the name the anti-Walpole resistance gave themselves and the speech is essentially an article by their leader, Bolingbroke. She escapes to the safer country of Oozof, which is a republic and is ranted at again, this time about the benefits of republics over monarchies. These parts were the draggier parts of the novel, being largely undigested political speeches.

However, the action ramps up again after Eovaai is kidnapped from Oozof and brought back to Ochihatou’s love pad. There she sees a monkey who hands her a tablet with some words on, these words turn her into a human and we hear her story. The monkey used to be a woman called Atamadoul and she was the maid of a beautiful princess that Ochihatou wanted to marry. Unfortunately for the Big O, the princesses parents wouldn’t allow it but Atamadoul the maid was in love and disguised herself as the princess to make a midnight flit. While disguised Ochihatou put a ring on her finger which would magically force her to lust over him constantly and away they flew. However, when they got back to Ochihatou’s love pad, he realised that she was someone else and was so furious he changed her into a monkey. Even crueller, he chained her to the wall of his love pad so she would be forced to watch him having sex with other people, the ring of lust making it even more torture to see. Most cruelly, he occasionally torments her with a horny baboon who he allows to almost rape her and says he’ll let it go all the way one day. Utterly horrifying and peculiar, you never know where you’ll end up with when Eliza Haywood goes full excess. Atamadoul has a plan, when Ochihatou returns to have his evil way, request the light is off, place her in human mode and let her take Eovaai’s place on the bed. They carry out this plan, of course Eovaai watches but then the light is turned on and Ochihatou sees the trick. Poor Atamadoul is turned into a rat this time and we don’t see her again.

However, the light has been turned on because the patriots are storming his house and he grabs Eovaai and runs off to a safe country with a sob tale about the evil patriots trying to kill their king. This ruse lasts a little while but the wizard is rumbled again and decides to whisk Eovaai back to her home country where he can marry her and run her land for his pleasure and gain. Weirdly, despite the magical flying crystals, the chariots pulled by doves and antelopes, Ochihatou says they only way they can get back is by stripping naked to be changed into birds. This means that when they land if Eovaai’s country they are naked and Ochihatou ties her to a tree by her hair and grabs some stinging nettles to torture her into accepting him.

This is when a hunk comes in and saves her. The hunk has also saved the country from the civil war and is acting as Protector. They fall instantly in love but there’s a hitch, he is only allowed to love the woman who has the case for a sacred jewel he’s found. To no reader’s surprise it turns out to be the sacred jewel from the beginning of the book and Eovaai has the necklace to put it in. They marry, the man is also the prince of Hypotofa so the two countries unite and have a great future. Ochihatou has run into a tree and killed himself by this point.

Truly one of the stranger works of fiction knocking about and in parts great fun for its shocking nastiness, it’s silly naming and a fairy tale ending. It also has that boring run in the middle though. As such, this is probably the weakest of Eliza Haywood’s books that I have read so far but it is still worth a read just to go on the peculiar and improbable journey.

The introduction makes a lot of points about the footnotes that Haywood uses in the book. How they are a cacophony of voices, from the supposed translator of the book, especially his own views the centuries of scholars who have commentated on the book in China. The translator has a problem with a particular commentator who interprets the events in the most misogynistic ways and corrects him on a number of points. Although the footnotes were a fun element, I feel that Eliza Haywood could have used them more playfully and added more jokes and tangents, as they were used in Pope’s Dunciad. They weren’t an un-fun addition, but there could have been more.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange, very strange...I would describe it but you probably wouldn't believe me. Quite entertaining though!

[June Min · Rating 4 out of 5]

class read

may not agree with all of the opinions the author seems to imply, but i enjoyed the worldbuilding, random magical nonsense, & found it flowed well and was a decently easy read given when it was published and the fact there weren’t designated quotation marks (reading more woolf steeled me)

one more gripe is it made use of a few predictable tropes especially in the beginning (like wise old king’s dying wish is messed up by next gen and they have to go on journey to fix it), but i think it had so much random magic stuff that it kinda offset that predictability, as well as it being important to consider haywood, as supposedly one of the first prominent female authors in the west, was doing so at a time when women weren’t groomed into writing like men were

i also was moved into solid happiness by the ending which def contributed to leaning toward a 4

[Stef · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn't quite grasp it in college, didn't quite grasp it now.

However, I /want/ to like it. I'm really intrigued by the history behind the genre, and how the story interwove into current events. I kinda wish there were quotation marks and more modern formatting though.

[Eeshvar · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

Actually was she on something when she wrote this? The political background comes out so muddy in the novel, and I enjoyed it much more as a work of fiction in and of itself. So weird... love it.

[Megan Bruening · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is more of a warning than a review: when you read this novel make sure you have an edition with good notes. The novel is a satire criticizing the politician Walpole, and without knowledge of the politics of the era the story can be confusing. Also, Haywood was clearly not a master of fantasy, and there is just some bizarre stuff in there.

[Joelle Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the hidden political meaning behind it. Pretty powerful, but not quite as boring. haha.