author
Hannah Webster Foster
1759–1840
Best known for the early American novel The Coquette, this sharp observer of social rules wrote fiction that still feels lively, curious, and emotionally alert. Her work helped shape conversations about women's choices, reputation, and education in the young United States.
2 Audiobooks
The Coquette, or, The History of Eliza Wharton A Novel: Founded on Fact
by Hannah Webster Foster
About the author
Born in Salisbury, Massachusetts, Hannah Webster Foster was an American novelist of the early republic. She is most closely associated with The Coquette (1797), an epistolary novel published anonymously that became widely known and is still read as an important work of early American fiction.
Foster also wrote The Boarding School (1798), another novel that reflects her interest in women's education, conduct, and everyday social life. Her writing is often noted for the way it explores the pressures placed on women and the narrow expectations that shaped their choices.
Although only a small amount of biographical detail is firmly documented, her literary reputation has lasted far beyond her own era. Today she is remembered as one of the notable women writers of the late eighteenth century in the United States, especially for bringing wit, feeling, and moral complexity to popular fiction.