SOURCE: Rothstein, Eric. “Woman, Women, and The Female Quixote.” In Augustan Subjects, edited by Albert J. Rivero, pp. 249-75. Delaware: University of Delaware Press, 1997.

In the following essay, Rothstein views Lennox's novel as a struggle for autonomy by both Lennox and her character Arabella.

The Issue of Gender

Readers of Henry Fielding's Covent-Garden Journal of 24 March 1752 (no. 24) found the greatest British Cervantean, author of Don Quixote in England and The History of … Joseph Andrews. … Written in Imitation of the Manner of Cervantes, enthusiastic about “a Book called, THE FEMALE QUIXOTE, … an Imitation of the famous Romance of Cervantes.” He went so far as to compare Charlotte Lennox's novel to Cervantes', listing some “Parts in which the two Authors appear to me upon an Equality” and five “Particulars, in which, I think, our Countrywoman hath excelled the Spanish Writer.” These five ensue from Lennox's deftness with verisimilitude, formal control...