The Romantic Novels of Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

Susan Ferrier published three long, three-volume novels. Set largely in Scotland and seemingly limited to the sub-genre of provincial novels, Ferrier's novels are sophisticated and worldly novels fully engaged withe the issues of the day. Ferrier's novels are witty and intellectually difficult novels, full of learned allusions, literary parodies, sly epigrams, and linguistic jokes. In her novels, as well as in her surviving memoirs and correspondence, Ferrier writes evocatively and with full knowledge of the subjects made current by Mary Wollstonecraft on the education of women, and their economic and political rights. Ferrier also presents original perspectives of Scottish ethnic traditions and contemporary politics. She combines this perspective with a unique inquiry into the nature and growth of personal consciousness and specifically female consciousness, in the context of private religion and public history.