Barbara Hofland (1770–1844) was one of the most prolific fiction writers of the Romantic era; she authored several books a year to a total of over 60 works. Though she published in a number of genres, she is best known as a children's writer who penned one‐volume tales characterized by their domestic realism and their promotion of social, moral, religious, and economic values. Hofland's tales are situated within a tradition of children's fiction by rationalist children's authors, like her friend Maria Edgeworth, as well as by Evangelicals such as Hannah More and Mary Sherwood. Indeed, Hofland's characters exemplify many middle‐class evangelical virtues – self‐control, moderation, and industry – and her tales likewise endorse a providential world view and the interconnection of economic and religious principles. Hofland's tales, however, are geared to older children and are not as overtly religious or didactic as those of her contemporaries. Furthermore, like another friend, Mary Mitford, Hofland wrote to support her family, so her generic choices and thematic concerns reflect her motivation to find marketable fictional forms available to female professional writers in early nineteenth‐century Britain. Though throughout her career she continued publishing in a variety of genres, in the moral, domestic tale Hofland found a form that was the most commercially successful and would not call into question her respectability or femininity. The marketability of her moral tales reflects the tastes of the Romantic‐era reading public and the role this genre plays as a bridge between didactic fiction and the later nineteenth‐century realist novel.
Mary Martha Sherwood (née Butt, 1775–1851) was one of the most prolific children's writers of the Romantic era. Though best known for The History of the Fairchild Family (1818), an immensely popular and influential work that was in print continuously until the twentieth century, Sherwood produced well over 300 tales, stories, novels, tracts, and pamphlets as well as a lengthy autobiography, The Life of Mrs. Sherwood , which was later edited by her daughter. Sherwood's career exemplifies the importance of the evangelical movement and how this vital religion influenced generic choice as well as publication venues. Furthermore, Sherwood's writings became a staple of Sunday reading throughout the nineteenth century and thus helped shape Victorian attitudes. While her writing, especially her early popular works, intersected with the Evangelicals’ missionary emphasis, Sherwood shifted and developed themes and genres throughout her lengthy career. Though she returns again and again to the theme of religious conversion, her later writings became more imbued with her anti‐Catholic sentiments. Sherwood's career demonstrates her important role in the shift away from tract works to realistic fiction, a movement seen especially in the evangelical movement but also mirrored in the wider world of nineteenth‐century fiction.
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