SOURCE: “‘Fallen under My Observation’: Vision and Virtue in The Coquette,” in Early American Literature, Vol. 27, No. 3, 1992, pp. 204-18.

In the following essay, Waldstreicher evaluates the unspoken communication of sentiment that aids characters in interpreting one another's actions, noting that women's subjective experience comes under the closest scrutiny.

It seems appropriate, particularly for the student of American literature, to publish The Power of Sympathy and The Coquette in a single volume. The novels are representative pieces of early native fiction, exhibiting the weaknesses and the strengths of the many tales of seduction and intrigue so popular with women readers in the last decades of the eighteenth century. By having the two novels in a single volume, the student can easily compare the works; and, if he wishes, by referring to Charlotte Temple … he can judge objectively the relative merit of each of the three authors.

—William S. Osbourne...