The 18th century brought about an explosion in women's writing as well as a new demand for fiction by women. Yet the growing number of circulating libraries and rapid (albeit inferior) methods of production, precluded a high survival rate for this genre. As a result, there has been only limited access to English novels of this period, and a subsequent shortage of critical works on the subject.

New introductions from Peter Garside and Caroline Franklin discuss these long neglected works in the broader context of the history of English literature. The works reprinted in this first series of British Novels in the 18th and 19th Century successfully convey the varied purposes of women authors from this period. Women writers often took a stand on the issues and controversies of their day, challenging women's limited roles in society, and drawing their arguments largely from personal experience.

Charlotte Smith, Sarah Scott, and Charlotte Lennox all experienced disastrous marriages and undertook novel writing as a means of financial support for themselves and their families. All three championed women's rights in their work. Mary Robinson was also involved in a hasty marriage to a womanizer and debtor, her situation further worsened by her damaging liaisons with the Prince of Wales and Colonel Tarleton. Robinson's writing career, first spurred by financial necessity and the influence of Mary Wollstonecraft, would later convey a feminist agenda in didactic prose.

Elizabeth Hamilton's writing career was uneventful by comparison as she wrote largely for enjoyment and instruction. Her Memoirs of Modern Philosophers is a satire of the Godwin circle. Mary Brunton wrote largely to inculcate religion and promote duty, propriety and self-reliance among her readers. Her novels were nonetheless masterworks of psychological realism and, like several writings in this collection, were extremely popular and influential in their time.