Charlotte Temple

By Susanna Rowson

Susanna Rowson's Charlotte Temple became a huge seller in America from its first publication there in 1794, subsequently going through over two hundred editions. This seduction novel tells of British schoolgirl Charlotte Temple, swept away to America by the dashing soldier John Montraville and abandoned there, sick and pregnant. Charlotte's daughter is the namesake of Rowson's sequel Lucy Temple.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sheba Blake Publishing
• Release date: Jul 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9789635276776

Susanna Rowson

Susanna Rowson (1762-1824) was a British-American novelist, poet, actress, and geographer. Born in Portsmouth, England, Rowson was taken to Massachusetts by her father, a Royal Navy officer, following the death of her mother. The family was placed under house arrest during the American Revolution and moved from Nantasket to Abington, Massachusetts. In 1778, they were sent to Halifax, Nova Scotia as part of a prisoner exchange and later settled in Yorkshire, England. As a young woman, Susanna moved to London and embarked on a career as a writer with the publication of Victoria (1786). Five years later, she published Charlotte Temple, which went on to become the first bestselling novel in the newly formed United States. In 1793, after gaining a reputation as an actress in Edinburgh, Susanna moved to Philadelphia to join the theater company of Thomas Wignell, for whom she performed over fifty roles in just two seasons on stage. She left theater several years later to found a school for girls in Boston, which she later moved to Newton, Massachusetts. Rowson continued writing works of fiction throughout her life, but largely devoted herself to education in her late career. Rowson’s Abridgement to Universal Geography (1805) and Youth’s First Steps in Geography (1811) are considered the first works of human geography—incorporating social and religious subjects—published in history. She ran her school, which eventually returned to Boston, until 1822, at which point she retired and handed operations over to her daughters.

Reviews for Charlotte Temple

[wareagle78 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Remorse with a side dish of guilt is the theme of Charlotte Temple, a US bestseller before the term existed. The tale is universal - a lovely, well-brought-up, moral young woman takes a tiny step astray with the encouragement of a seeming friend. Guilt from taking the small step keeps her from admitting the error, and makes it easier to continue to move in a direction that she knows to be wrong. The morality tale is drawn to show the young female reader how easy it is to become a Fallen Woman, and how difficult to recover. While the tale is set in the 1700's, the theme is just as relevant today although the situation itself would not raise as many eyebrows.

[jruel_3 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It's one of these Georgian/Victorian cautionary tales, except it was written in America, probably among the first of the genre to be written there. It doesn't renew the genre, but it had the advantage of being shorter than its British counterparts like Richardson's or Burney's. For me, it's one of those classics which don't age well because their subject matter is so close to the morals of the times.