Abstract
In the latter half of the eighteenth century, “scandalous memoirists” begin to focus more intently on family dynamics, arraigning disloyal relations as well as cruel husbands and lovers. This change reflects a transition in the concept of the family, with kinship priorities gradually shifting from consanguineal to conjugal families. The corresponding change in the female appeal memoir begins with The Memoirs of Mrs. Catherine Jemmat, Daughter of the late Admiral Yeo, of Plymouth (1762). Jemmat frames her tale as a doomed quest for domestic happiness: the scandal of her text is not her sexual fall, which she never narrates, but her abuse and abandonment by relations. In making these arguments, Jemmat modifies the structure of the “scandalous memoir” and provides a model for later memoirists.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Classified Ads, Public Advertiser (London), June 30, 1762, Issue 8692, 17th–18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers.
- 2.
An epigraph from Nicholas Rowe’s The Fair Penitent also appears on the title page of volume I of An Apology for the Conduct of Mrs. Teresia Constantia Phillips (London: Published by the author, 1748–1749), Eighteenth-Century Collections Online. Lady Vane also echoes Rowe’s play in her memoirs when she asserts, “I have been unhappy, because I loved, and was a woman.” See her memoirs, chapter 88 in Tobias Smollett’s The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, in Which are Included, Memoirs of a Lady of Quality, 1751 (U of Georgia P, 2014), 433.
- 3.
“The Heroines, or Modern Memoirs,” The London Magazine. Or, Gentleman’s Monthly Intelligencer 20 (March 1751), 135–136, Eighteenth-Century Collections Online.
- 4.
The ad quotes an unidentified review of the Memoirs.
- 5.
Nicholas Rowe, The Fair Penitent: A Tragedy. As it is Acted at the New Theatre in Little Lincoln’s Inn Fields (London: Jacob Tonson, 1703), Act 3, Scene 1 (page 26), Eighteenth-Century Collections Online.
- 6.
Ruth Perry, Novel Relations: The Transformation of Kinship in English Literature and Culture, 1748–1818 (Cambridge UP, 2004) 2, 3, 5.
- 7.
Jemmat self-published this memoir by subscription in 1762. A second edition followed in 1765: The Memoirs of Mrs. Catherine Jemmat, Daughter of The Late Admiral Yeo of Plymouth, Written by Herself, 2nd ed. (London: Printed for the Author, at Charing-Cross, 1765), 2 vols., available through Eighteenth-Century Collections Online. Since this is the last edition she approved, it is the one I use here. Further references are included parenthetically in the text. Jemmat died in 1766, but J. Cordeux (whose relation to Jemmat I have been unable to determine) took subscriptions for The Memoirs of Mrs. Catherine Jemmat, Daughter of the Late Admiral Yeo of Plymouth. Written by Herself, 2nd ed. (London, 1771), 2 vols., Eighteenth-Century Collections Online. Although labeled “The Second Edition,” it is technically the third, since the type has been reset. It also includes a new subscription list and dedicatee.
- 8.
Carolyn A. Barros and Johanna M. Smith, Life-Writings by British Women 1660–1850: An Anthology (Northeastern UP, 2000), 138–147. Lynda M. Thompson notes that the domestic violence exemplifies a trend in memoirs depicting problematic relationships between fathers and daughters in The “Scandalous Memoirists”: Constantia Phillips, Laetitia Pilkington and the Shame of “Publick Fame” (Manchester UP, 2000), 191–192.
- 9.
Vivien Jones, “Luxury, Satire and Prostitute Narratives,” Luxury in the Eighteenth Century: Debates, Desires and Delectable Goods, ed. Maxine Berg and Elizabeth Eger (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 183.
- 10.
Victoria Joule, “‘Heroines of their own romance’: Creative Exchanges between Life-Writing and Fiction, the ‘Scandalous Memoirists’ and Charlotte Lennox,” Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 37:1 (2014), 37, 45.
- 11.
Perry, 38.
- 12.
Perry, 49–50.
- 13.
Perry, 75.
- 14.
Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, or, The History of a Young Lady: Comprehending the Most Important Concerns of Private Life, And particularly showing The Distresses that May Attend the Misconduct Both of Parents and Children, in Relation to Marriage (Penguin, 1985), Letter 421, page 1233.
- 15.
Susan Staves, “British Seduced Maidens,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 14:2 (1980), 120, 122.
- 16.
Perry, 85.
- 17.
Frances Burney, Evelina, or, A Young Lady’s Entrance into the World, ed. Kristina Straub (Bedford Books, 1997), 404–418.
- 18.
Gary Kelly, “Scott, Sarah (1720–1795),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2006), www.oxforddnb.com.
- 19.
Perry, 144.
- 20.
Naomi Tadmore, Family and Friends in Eighteenth-Century England: Household, Kinship, and Patronage (Cambridge UP, 2001), 245–246.
- 21.
Beth Fowkes Tobin comments perceptively on this plot and its subversive as well as conservative interpretations in the Introduction to her edition of The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (Oxford UP, 1998), xiii–xv.
- 22.
Haywood, 449, 450.
- 23.
Wendy Moore succinctly reviews eighteenth-century law about marital violence in Wedlock: The True Story of the Disastrous Marriage and Remarkable Divorce of Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore (Crown, 2009), 153.
- 24.
Haywood, 530, 531, 533.
- 25.
Perry, 69.
- 26.
Edward, Duke of York died in 1767. The edition published posthumously in 1771 changes the dedication to the Duke of Cumberland, who had also entered the navy. The text remains the same.
- 27.
Pat Rogers, “Book Dedications in Britain 1700–1799: A Preliminary Survey,” The British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 6:2 (1993), 223.
- 28.
Laetitia Pilkington, Memoirs, ed. A. C. Elias (The U of Georgia P, 1997), 1:5; A. C. Elias, “Commentary,” The Memoirs of Mrs. Laetitia Pilkington, ed. A. C. Elias. (The U of Georgia P, 1997), 2:360–361.
- 29.
Norma Clarke, Queen of the Wits: A Life of Laetitia Pilkington (Faber and Faber, 2008), 297.
- 30.
Bill Overton, “The Subscription List for Jean Adams’s Miscellany Poems (1734),” Notes & Queries 51:4 (2004), 394. Overton draws upon the findings of P. J. Wallis.
- 31.
Jemmat, 1:164. See also Jane Collier, An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting…(London, 1753), especially 87.
- 32.
Jones, 183.
- 33.
Jemmat, 2:20.
- 34.
Jemmat, 2:27, 2:57.
- 35.
Thompson, 176.
- 36.
Review in The Monthly Review, or, Literary Journal 26.4 (1762), 407, Google Books.
- 37.
Rhoda Zuk, “The Courtesan’s Progress in the Late 1790s: Elizabeth Gooch and Margaret Coghlan,” Women’s Writing 11 (2004): 370, 371.
- 38.
Julie Steenson, “Life Lessons: Self-Defence and Social Didacticism in Elizabeth Gooch’s Life-Writing and The Contrast,” Women’s Writing 18:3 (2011): 405–422.
- 39.
David S. Katz, The Jews in the History of England 1485–1850 (Oxford UP, 1994), 223.
- 40.
Julie Peakman, Lascivious Bodies: A Sexual History of the Eighteenth Century (Atlantic Books, 2004), 100–101; 87, 96; 75–78.
- 41.
Margaret Leeson, The Memoirs of Mrs. Leeson. In Three Volumes, ed. Mary Lyons (Lilliput, 1995), 3.
- 42.
Leeson, 6.
- 43.
Leeson, 14–15.
- 44.
Leeson, 27.
- 45.
Leeson, 32.
Bibliography
Gooch, Elizabeth. An Appeal to the Public, on the Conduct of Mrs. Gooch, The Wife of William Gooch, Esq. Written by Herself. London: G. Kearsley, 1788.
Haywood, Eliza. The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless. 1751. Ed. Beth Fowkes Tobin. Oxford UP, 1997.
Johnstone, Julia. The Confessions of Julia Johnstone, Written by Herself. In Contradiction to the Fables of Harriette Wilson. London: Benbow, 1825.
———. The Life of Mrs. Gooch. Written by Herself. Dedicated to the Public. In Three Volumes. London: Printed for the Authoress, and Sold by C. and G. Kearsley, No. 46, Fleet Street, 1792.
Wilson, Harriette. Memoirs of Harriette Wilson, Written by Herself. London: J. J. Stockdale, 1825.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Breashears, C. (2016). The Family, Sex, and Scandal: Catherine Jemmat’s Memoirs . In: Eighteenth-Century Women's Writing and the 'Scandalous Memoir'. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48655-0_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48655-0_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-48654-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-48655-0
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)