SOURCE: Jones, Ann H. “Charlotte Dacre.” In Ideas and Innovations: Best Sellers of Jane Austen's Age, pp. 224-49. New York: AMS Press, 1986.

In the following essay, Jones treats Zofloya as an allegory whose narrative traces the growth of evil, with Zofloya intended not as naturalistic but as a representative part of Victoria's mind.

In the year 1810, when Sydney Owenson was still known for fervid works like Woman and The Missionary, her name was linked by Sarah Green in the preface to Romance Readers and Romance Writers with that of another novelist, Charlotte Dacre, as “the most licentious writers of romance of the time.”¹ Sydney Owenson, however, was soon not only to change her style but to make sexual relationships the least important part of her novels, whereas Charlotte Dacre's style was always to be fevered and sexual relationships were to be of paramount importance in all she wrote...