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THE GOVERNESS
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series editor:L.W.Conolly
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THE GOVERNESS; OR, THE
LITTLE FEMALE ACADEMY
Sarah Fielding
edited by Candace Ward
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© Candace Ward
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Fielding,Sarah,-.
The governess,or,The little female academy / Sarah Fielding ;edited by Candace Ward.
(Broadview editions)
isbn---
I.Ward,Candace II.Title. III.Title:Little female academy. IV.Series.
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Contents
Acknowledgements •
Introduction •
Sarah Fielding:A Brief Chronology •
A Note on the Text •
The Governess;or,The Little Female Academy •
Appendix A:Sarah Trimmer’s Review of The Governess in The
Guardian of Education (June ) •
Appendix B:Selected Correspondence of
Sarah Fielding •
Appendix C:Excerpts from Sarah Fielding’s Remarks on
‘Clarissa’ () •
Appendix D:Excerpts from Eighteenth-Century Educational
Literature •
. From John Locke,Some Thoughts Concerning
Education () •
. From John Gregory,A Father’s Legacy to His
Daughters () •
. From Thomas Day,The History of Sandford and
Merton () •
. From Sarah Trimmer,Fabulous Histories () •
. From Mary Wollstonecraft,Original Stories from
Real Life () •
. From Mary Wollstonecraft,A Vindication of the
Rights of Woman () •
. From Mrs.Sherwood,The Governess () •
Select Bibliography •
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Acknowledgements
First,I would like to thank Julia Gaunce,Leonard Conolly,and
the Broadview editorial team for their support of this project.I
would also like to acknowledge the advice and encouragement
of Jan Susina, Ron Fortune, and Susan Kim at Illinois State
University.Thanks also to Linda Bree for sharing her enthusiasm
for Sarah Fielding. I’m grateful to Madeline Gibson at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for her assistance and
good humor,and to Rita Smith,Curator of the Baldwin Library
of Historical Children’s Literature,George A.Smathers Libraries
at the University of Florida,for help in locating Mrs.Sherwood’s
The Governess.And last but not least,heartfelt thanks to Matthew
Kopka for his patience and invaluable editorial advice.
In Memorium:Carrie Frances Wagner,–,friend and
teacher.
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Introduction
Sarah Fielding’s Life
After almost two centuries of obscurity, the works of Sarah
Fielding,including The Governess;or,The Little Female Academy
(),have recaptured the attention of literary critics.Fielding’s
novels,literary criticism,translations,and experimental writings
evidence a deep intelligence,which,like that of many of her
female contemporaries,operated under cover of a self-deprecat-
ing modesty.The full scope of Fielding’s particular genius has also
been overshadowed by her brother Henry Fielding’s literary repu-
tation,both in eighteenth-century criticism and that of more
recent years. In fact, much of what we know about Sarah
Fielding’s life and writings was initially recorded as a supplement
to Henry’s biography.
Although the dearth of information about Fielding is frustrat-
ing,it’s not surprising given the tendency in eighteenth-century
British culture to define women relationally,as daughters,sisters,
wives,and mothers.The two latter relationships did not apply to
Fielding as she never married or had children.Had she fulfilled
either of these roles,which,according to contemporary wisdom,
was the only real chance a woman had for happiness,she would
most likely not have published,or at least not to the extent that
she did.As Fielding herself claimed in the preface to her first
novel,The Adventures of David Simple (),“Perhaps the best
Excuse that can be made for a Woman’s venturing to write at all,
is that which has really produced this Book: Distress in her
Circumstances:which she could not so well remove by any other
Means in her Power.” This attitude was shared by many women
of the period,among them,as Linda Bree points out,Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu, a distant relative of Fielding. Montagu
“heartily pit[ied] her [Fielding],constrained by her circumstances
to seek her bread by a method I do not doubt she despises.”
The Adventures of David Simple and Volume the Last,ed.Peter Sabor (Lexington:UP
of Kentucky,),.
Qtd.in Linda Bree,Sarah Fielding (New York:Twayne,),.
; ,
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The circumstances alluded to by Fielding and Montagu were
the consequence of Fielding’s position as a gentlewoman with
no wealth of her own and no father or husband to provide for
her financial security.Fielding’s precarious position as an adult
represented a departure from the life she had been accustomed
to in early childhood.Her mother,née Sarah Gould,was the
daughter of a wealthy lawyer and magistrate,Sir Henry Gould,
and Lady Sarah Davidge Gould.In when their daughter
married Edmund Fielding,a soldier who had served in France
and Lisbon,her parents disapproved,even though his family
connections included the Earls of Denbigh and Desmond.
Perhaps the Goulds foresaw that aristocratic connections did not
translate into economic solvency:their son-in-law was a soldier
and thus subject to the fortunes (or misfortunes) of war and mili-
tary patronage;moreover,he was not a good economist.Sir
Henry,then,determined to provide for his daughter and grand-
children and,in ,the year that Sarah was born,arranged for
the purchase of a small farm in East Stour,Dorset.
The farmhouse in East Stour would prove a mixed blessing
for the Fieldings.For the first seven and a half years of her life,
Sarah (the third daughter and one of seven children) enjoyed
the pleasant and privileged life typical of a wealthy county family,
their house staffed by servants,including a governess for the girls’
education.For a time after Sir Henry’s death in ,Lady Gould
lived with the Fieldings and no doubt influenced the way the
household was run.As for Edmund,he had been put on half-pay
in and was transforming himself from a soldier into a
gentleman-farmer.This transformation was interrupted in April
by the death of Sarah’s mother.Edmund left for London
soon after,leaving his children in the care of their maternal great-
aunt,Katherine Cottington.
The following year Edmund, having received a colonel’s
appointment,remarried Anne Blanchfield Rapha and brought her
to East Stour in .Sarah’s new stepmother was the widow of
an Italian Roman Catholic with two daughters of her own,both
Henry was born in ;Catharine in ;Ursula in ;Anne in (d.);
Beatrice in ;and Edmund in .
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of whom were receiving convent educations abroad. Neither
Colonel Fielding’s marriage nor his new wife’s Catholicism sat
well with Lady Gould and Mrs.Cottington,and relations between
Edmund and his in-laws—which had never been smooth—wors-
ened with the new household arrangements.Edmund found it so
uncomfortable that he and his wife returned to London.He did
not,however,take his children with him.Instead Edmund decided
that Henry was to go to Eton to prepare for a university educa-
tion,and that the three older girls (Catharine,Ursula,and Sarah)
were to be enrolled in Mrs.Rookes’s boarding school in Salisbury,
where Lady Gould had moved in .
As for Lady Gould,she had always been suspicious of Edmund’s
handling of the East Stour property,the rents of which Sir Henry
had always intended for the care of his daughter and grandchil-
dren.In February she filed suit against her son-in-law in
hopes of retaining custody of the children and guaranteeing the
farm income for their exclusive use.By all accounts,the lawsuit—
based on Lady Gould’s assertions that Colonel Fielding and his
wife neglected and mistreated the children—was bitter and espe-
cially devastating for Sarah and her brothers and sisters.Whether
or not the allegations were true,intimate details of the family life
were aired in public,and the antagonisms between the two parties
must have colored the children’s perception of adult life.Certainly
in Fielding’s writings (including The Governess) there are a number
of wicked stepmothers and weak and/or negligent fathers.
One of the most dramatic of these portrayals appears in The
Adventures of David Simple. In that text,Camilla and Valentine,
brother and sister, lose their mother. Soon after their father
remarries and his new wife does all she can to alienate her
husband from his children.Jealous of the influence that Camilla
and Valentine might retain over their father,Livia confides to him
that their “remarkable Fondness”for one another is based on an
incestuous relationship.The father believes her and banishes his
Sarah gained six stepbrothers from this marriage.Her stepbrother Sir John Fielding (b.
) was a Middlesex magistrate who provided Sarah Fielding with financial assistance
later in her life (Martin C.Battestin and Clive T.Probyn,eds.The Correspondence of
Henry and Sarah Fielding[Oxford:Clarendon P,],).Sir John is also credited,along
with Henry,with establishing the Bow Street Runners,London’s first police force.
; ,
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children. Although incest was a common theme in eighteenth-
century fiction,the inclusion of sibling incest in Fielding’s text has
attracted critical attention,not least because of her close relation-
ship with Henry.(Henry’s first novel Joseph Andrews,written two
years before David Simple,also deals with incest.) One of Henry’s
biographers,Martin Battestin,suggests that Sarah’s and Henry’s
fascination with this theme arose from their memories of the
lawsuit between Edmund Fielding and Lady Gould.According to
the court records,a family maid testified that Henry,at the time
aged ,“was guilty of committing some indecent actions with
his Sister Beatrice,”then aged . The testimony does not reveal
what those indecent actions were, nor is it clear how much
credence was given to the report.What is clear—evidenced by the
numerous close relationships between sisters and brothers in
Fielding’s fiction—is that she understood the significance and
fragility of such close ties,especially for economically dependent
women.As Jenny Peace’s mother explains to her in The Governess,
“[R]emember how much [your] Brother’s superior Strength
might assist in his being [your] Protector;and ...in return ...use
[your] utmost Endeavours to oblige him;and ...then [you] should
be mutual Assistants to each other throughout Life”(p.of this
edition). Mutual assistance between brother and sister was even
more crucial in the absence of a strong father figure.
That Edmund Fielding was not a model father—he was never
able to provide financial security for his children, and was
committed,the year before his death in ,to debtor’s prison—
was reflected in the outcome of the lawsuit,which was finally
settled in Lady Gould’s favor in .The close of the court case
also marks the close of the public records that provide details of
Sarah Fielding’s early family life.Biographers are fairly certain
As Martin Battestin points out,there is another accusation of sibling incest in the
“History of Anna Boleyn,”which has been attributed to Sarah and which appears in
Henry’s A Journey from This World into the Next(Miscellanies ):“I [Anne Boleyn]
was brought to my trial,and to blacken me the more,accused of conversing crimi-
nally with my own Brother,whom indeed I loved extremely well,but never looked
on him in any other Light than as my Friend”(“Henry Fielding,Sarah Fielding,and
‘the dreadful Sin of Incest,’”Novel:A Forum on Fiction .[Fall ]:).
Qtd.in Battestin,“Henry Fielding ...Incest”.
All page references to The Governess will refer to this edition.
Description:Published in 1749, the story of Mrs. Teachum and the nine pupils who make up her “little female academy” is widely recognized as the first full-length novel for children, and the first to be aimed specifically at girls. The daily experiences of Mrs. Teachum’s charges are interwoven with fables
