Memoirs of Emma Courtney / Mary Hays. Mothers of the Novel. Intro: Sally Cline.
It was to be an “instructive rather than self indulgent” work. Emma is exposed to a series of situations―motherlessness, orphanhood, poverty, dependence, and more―which encourage her to reflect “on the inequalities of society, the source of every misery and vice, and on the peculiar disadvanteges of my sex.”.