READ, Martha

Born circa 1780s; died death date unknown

Martha Read's only work, Monima; or, The Beggar Girl: A Novel (1802), reveals the author's conscious control of plot and structure. In her dedication and preface to this long narrative, Read offers the conventional apology for the work's defects and places a conventional stress on the novel's foundation on fact. But she also hints at a developed aesthetic that her story will illustrate—adherence to truth and to nature, Read feels, determines a novel's artistic success.

The plot is thus simpler than those of many of the novels of late-18th and early-19th-century America and the principal characters are fewer. Set in Philadelphia in the early 1790s, the novel immediately focuses on Monima Fontanbleu, a beautiful seamstress of sixteen, and her old father, who have fallen upon hard times. Monima has lost her position with Madame Ursala Sontine, a selfish woman who fears her virtuous husband's attraction to the young woman. The narrative grows naturally out of this situation as Madame Sontine repeatedly tries to remove Monima—by confinement to the workhouse, to her own country estate, and to a hospital for the insane—from possible contact with her husband. Ursala is abetted in her machinations first by her pliable maid, by her unscrupulous brother, and later by Pierre De Noix, an acquaintance of Sontine's who becomes Ursala's lover and who soon himself develops lecherous designs on Monima. Monima escapes from all these incarcerations, and even gains small sums through infrequent employment and occasional begging. Monsieur Sontine is attracted to Monima—but merely as a brotherly benefactor—and seeks to aid her, only sometimes succeeding because of his wife's elaborate plotting.

Read's aesthetic principles seem clear. Actions are motivated by character, and the author emphasizes the historicity of her material. Read does not avoid unpleasant details despite the novel's many sentimental scenes (primarily concerning Monima's begging). The novel also contains sharply observed humor as Read exploits American prejudices against the French and satirizes the romantic plots of many of her contemporaries.

Read's themes are not original—American purity and innocence will triumph, and a happy marriage is the just reward for female virtue—but her technique and conscious attempt to realize aesthetic principles distinguish Monima from other novels of the period.

Bibliography:

Brown, H. R., The Sentimental Novel in America: 1789-1860 (1940). Petter, H., The Early American Novel (1971).

Other references:

American Review and Literary Journal (1802).

—CAROLINE ZILBOORG