As a playwright, hack author, panegyrist, and political satirist, Delarivière Manley gained a curious combination of respect and contempt that has characterized her reputation to the present day. Cut off by an early false marriage from the decorum and security of her genteel cavalier upbringing, she used the pen as weapon and tool to vindicate herself and even attempt to reform the society by which she felt herself victimized. She is best known for her secret histories, especially the New Atalantis--Secret Memoirs ... from the New Atalantis (1709) and Memoirs of Europe (1710)--which are only now being taken seriously as important contributions to the development of the English novel. Her contemporaries would have further identified her as a highly effective Tory pamphleteer and propaganda writer and editor for Jonathan Swift's Examiner.

Yet Manley first garnered fame as a "petticoat author" in the playhouse. Three of her four extant...