ABSTRACT
By 1793–1794 the emigre novel was a burgeoning European phenomenon, attracting the attention of established writers like Isabelle de Charriere and Charlotte Smith, and making the careers of writers such as August Lafontaine and Therese Huber. The emigre novel serves as a useful indicator of the circulation of ideas and people at a time when writers were reassessing notions of verisimilitude, given that the daily events of the Revolution were often stranger than fiction. The novel ends with a typically Swiss strengthening of the family bonds as brother and sister marry sister and brother. The much more established 'Swiss' writer Isabelle de Charriere also produces an early emigre novel which contains many of the elements that would become standard plot devices of the genre while at the same time rejecting the sentimentalism and dramatic tendencies of many contemporary novels. The novel reveals, nevertheless, the impact that the Terror has had on fiction of the period.
