author
Hannah Webster Foster
1759–1840
Best known for the early American novel The Coquette, this sharp-eyed writer explored love, reputation, and the narrow choices available to women in the new republic. Her fiction was widely read in the 1790s and is still studied for its lively letters and social insight.
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, in 1758 or 1759, Hannah Webster Foster grew up in a prominent family and received an education that was considered unusually strong for a girl of her time. In 1785 she married the Rev. John Foster, and her writing emerged from the world of educated New England women who were thinking seriously about morality, society, and women's lives.
Her best-known work, The Coquette; or, The History of Eliza Wharton (1797), was published anonymously and became a notable success. Told through letters, the novel follows a young woman trying to balance independence, romance, and social expectations. Foster published another novel, The Boarding School; or, Lessons of a Preceptress to Her Pupils (1798), which reflects her interest in women's education and conduct.
Although her name did not appear on The Coquette during her lifetime, later readers recognized her as an important early American novelist. Today she is remembered for writing stories that feel both of their era and surprisingly modern in the way they examine freedom, judgment, and the pressure placed on women.