ABSTRACT
Many eighteenth-century novelists who chose to remain more or less anonymous adopted the demure eidolon 'a Lady' or even 'a young Lady', which tantalizingly gestures towards disclosing at least the author's gender, quality and possibly age - even if this information cannot entirely be credited. Bluestockings Elizabeth Carter and Catherine Talbot read the novel soon after its publication, and each speculated on the identity of its anonymous author. Stylistic and thematic analysis can do little to answer the questions the sparse facts leave hanging. Like The Histories, Fielding's fiction explores the devastating reality of female dependence and inadequate education, sexual double standards, the price paid by women for the privileging of economic ambition above affective ties and perhaps pre-eminently the potential of female community to address and transcend these social inequities. Real though the pressures could be for eighteenth-century women writers, they could also be, and frequently were, exploited. Anonymity, specifically, could be leveraged for various gains.
