Authors: Erica Jong
The Pyratiad
continu’d to sell upon the Strength of Scandal, tho’ its Lit’ry Reputation declin’d. Lancelot, who had also been made to eat Humble Pye when his Hopes of a Deocracy were dasht and dasht again, understood better than anyone my Disappointments. Thus, the Denunciation of my so lately prais’d Epick forg’d betwixt us an e’en tighter Bond. O we lov’d each other truly now—join’d as we were by Love, by Lust, by shar’d Adversity, and by Belinda, our lovely Daughter (whom Lancelot lov’d as if he’d sir’d her himself, nay better). Still, we ne’er married, for I’d be damn’d if I’d give a Man—e’en a Man as loving as my Lancelot—Pow’r o’er my Lands and Houses, Stocks and Bonds! Lancelot might share all that I had, but under the Law, if I married him, he would have Title to all, not I; for thus were Wives treated under Britannia’s Statutes. I was resolv’d, therefore, ne’er to marry (which Lancelot, who was no Friend to the Law himself, fully applauded and understood).
I return’d, after a Period of Mourning, to my Scribbling. Damn ’em all—I thought—those rude splenetick London Rogues! I’ll not be silenced by a Parcel of Poltroons! Whereupon, as is well-known, I scribbl’d in the next score of Years a score of Romances in Mrs. Haywood’s Manner, which made both me and my Bookseller richer than “The Beggar’s Opera” made Mr. Rich, and gayer than the same made Mr. Gay!
O I had Fame and Fortune from my Fictions now—tho’ scarcely lofty Reputation. I scribbl’d my Romances, and nurtur’d my Beloveds, for I knew, after so many Losses, that Love is the closest we know of Heaven in this Weary World, and we must love the Human ere we may know the Divine! I liv’d for Lancelot, Belinda, my two Mothers, and the Merry Men; to tend my Garden, breed my Horses, feed my Turtledoves, scamper with my Dogs, and write my Books. I made good also my Promise to Bartholomew by publishing his Book—tho’, alas, it sank upon the vast Seas of the Publick’s Indiff’rence without a Trace; for the Time was not yet ripe to question the Slave Trade from which accru’d to England such Riches, Rums, and Sweets, borne upon the beaten Backs of Slaves. I griev’d for the Fate of Bartholomew’s Book, almost glad that he was not here to behold it; but save for that, I was happy enough with my beloved Lancelot, Belinda, and my Works.
Then, in that infamous Year, 1749, there came to me, wrapp’d in a single Sheet of Foolscap, and inscrib’d in John Cleland’s own Mocking Hand, an Outrage which
demanded
my Reply. ’Twas a loathsome Book, issu’d by my own Bookseller, that Bloody Rogue, Ralph Griffiths (hiding behind the preposterous Rubrick of G. Fenton) and call’d—O Calumny!—
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure!
It told of a simp’ring, cloying Heroine, call’d Fanny Hill, obviously modell’d upon my youthful Self, who toil’d in a Brothel, and lov’d the Masculine Member so dearly and so well that she had dozens of delicious, adoring Terms for it!
I read this so-called “Memoir” and my Blood boil’d! To think that Cleland, to whom I’d been so kind, would slander and defile me for his Bread alone! For he wrote the bloody Thing merely to slither out of Debtor’s Prison—where he might have rotted for Eternity for all I car’d!
Lancelot bade me forget the Insult, quoting to me Dean Swift’s clever lines:
If on Parnassus’ Top you sit,
You rarely bite, are always bit;
Each Poet of inferior Size
on you shall rail and criticize;
and strive to tear you Limb from Limb,
While others do as much for him.
Isobel argu’d that ’twas my Popularity as a Romancer which provokt such an Attack, for is there not an Arabick Proverb which goes, “No one throws Stones at a Barren Tree”?
But I was too enrag’d to heed either Lover or Mother. Very well, then, thought I, the Time hath come to tell my
own
History to the World. For, oft’ when we have nurs’d a Dream for many a Year, ’tis some mundane Provocation which stirs our Blood and piques us to begin to make that Dream come true. Since our Return to Wiltshire I had dreamt (whilst scribbling my Mock-Epick and Romances) of writing the History of my Life and Adventures for you, my Daughter, so that when you should go out into the Great World, you should not go empty-handed, but should have a Loving Guide amidst the sundry Dilemmas Fate would surely put before you. (O I would give you my tatter’d red Garter as well—and someday you would give it to
your
Daughter—but I wisht you to have Words of Wisdom as well as Witchcraft, Sagacity as well as Spells!)
I dreamt of such a Book, yet hesitated. Fear of Censure held back my Hand; ’twas not the Fashion of the Time to write one’s own Life History. Besides, there were other, still more puissant Fears: the Witchcraft Acts were not repeal’d till ’36, and in the Country there were still such Villains as would stone or hang a poor old Woman for the Charge of Witchcraft. Moreo’er Pope, my Nemesis, still liv’d, and wielded the awesome Pow’r of scribbling his Enemies into
The Dunciad.
(He had put me there as a Minor Dunce—doubtless for my Success in writing Romances and for my slighting him those many Years ago.) But what if I should tell the Truth of him? O terrible to think of his Revenge! Thus till he dy’d in ’44, I could not tell all that I knew of him.
And so I dreamt, but hesitated; for I knew that if I wrote a Book for my Daughter, and wrote it as a Testament of Love, I must hide nothing, but tell the utter Truth; both Clio and the Goddess must guide my Quill.
Cleland’s Book was, then, a curious Barb, a Blessing in Disguise, a sort of Dare. Nor did it discourage me that both Mr. Richardson and Mr. Fielding had begun to write Histories in which English Scenes and Characters of Low Estate march’d thro’ the Pages of a Book in lieu of Lords and Ladies in Exotick Lands. Perhaps this was a curious Sign as well, that I might write of all the Common Rogues which Fate had brought before my Eyes. For was not my
authentick
History as stirring as Fanny Hill’s, or Pamela’s, or e’en that of Tom Jones? Orphan, Whore, Adventuress, Kept Woman, Slaver, Amanuensis, Witch, e’en a pardon’d Pyrate! By the Goddess, ’twas my
own
Life History that made a better History than any
fancied
History. And by the Goddess, ’twas the Time to tell it all!
You, my Belinda, had grown from Beauteous Babe to Beauteous Woman in what seem’d the Blink of an Eye; and to my Sadness, yet my Resignation, you wisht to make a Grand Tour of the Globe, to visit all the Places I had seen and some that I had not—America! (For tho’ I’d seen the Azure Caribee, I ne’er had touch’d the New World’s fabl’d Shores.) And now you wisht a Voyage to those Lands—both civiliz’d and savage—which your Mother had not seen.
I knew I could not keep you from this Dream; and yet I wisht to write a Book for you, which you might press unto your Bosom as you roam’d the World, consult in Times of Need, and which I dreamt should bring you safely Home—to Merriman, your Birthright, and to me.
And so I took my Quill in Hand, and I began.
AFTERWORD
Having impersonated Fanny Hackabout-Jones for 516 pages, I should now see if I can still impersonate myself in order to give the interested reader something of the background of this book, its roots, as it were.
In 1961, as a Barnard undergraduate, I took my first course in English Literature of the eighteenth century, taught by Professor James L. Clifford, the eminent eighteenth-century scholar and chronicler of the life of Samuel Johnson. Jim Clifford’s course was as extraordinary as he was. To begin with, it had Barnard undergrads, Columbia undergrads, and graduate students, all sitting together in something like amity and good fellowship. Secondly, though it was a “lecture course,” there was always lots of animated give-and-take between students and professor—which, God knows, was rare at Columbia in that epoch. Jim Clifford made the eighteenth century come alive for us. He referred to figures like Boswell and Johnson by their first names. He shared with us curious biographical tidbits from his own research, recounted with his own glorious sense of humor. Perhaps most important was his fascination with the details of daily existence in the eighteenth century. In one of his scholarly essays, “Some Aspects of Life in the Mid-Eighteenth Century,” he describes all those things that other scholars omit: the conditions of plumbing in eighteenth-century England, the emptying of chamberpots and cesspits, the lighting of the streets, and various schemes for reducing muggings and street crimes. He goes into detail about these things because, as a biographer, it was his conviction that you could not really understand a man’s mind if you dwelt only upon intellectual history—you must also be able to imagine the most mundane aspects of his life.
Two term papers were required for Professor Clifford’s full-year course: one dealing with the Augustan period and one with the Age of Johnson. Though a student might certainly write a footnoted scholarly paper, Jim Clifford encouraged us instead to attempt an imitation of a writer we admired. For the first half of the course, I wrote an imitation of Alexander Pope—a “Mock Epick” in heroic couplets. For the second, I wrote a novella in the style of Henry Fielding.
Later I received a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to take my M.A. in eighteenth-century Literature at Columbia and I wrote my Master’s thesis on Alexander Pope. After earning my M.A. in 1965, I began work toward a Ph.D. in that field, but dropped out when my own creative writing became ever more pressing and distracting. Yet in the back of my mind, there was always the fantasy of returning to eighteenth-century England, as it had come alive for me under Jim Clifford’s tutelage, and of writing a novel set in that period.
I dared not do it for many years, though I continued to read about the eighteenth century and to visit eighteenth-century houses whenever I was in England. In the years immediately following graduate school, and a four-year stint as a college teacher of English, I was too busy trying to free myself of academic influences to want to plunge back into research. But even as I wrote books like
Fear of Flying
and
How to Save Your Own Life
, and my first four books of poetry, I dreamed of writing a mock-eighteenth-century novel someday. Still, I wanted to wait until I was both free enough of the graduate student within me to do it lightheartedly, and yet calm enough in my own life to devote myself to the massive research I knew it would require.
Early in 1976, after I had finished
How to Save Your Own Life
(though it had not yet been published), I began to do research for Fanny—then tentatively called
The True History of the Adventures of Fanny Hackabout-Jones.
I went to see Jim Clifford and he helped me compile the nucleus of the bibliography that made this novel possible. Over the next year or so, he gave me various leads and answered questions I raised. He had also promised to read it for me before publication, but alas, he never saw a finished manuscript, because he died in 1978.
J. H. Plumb was kind and generous enough to take on this task, and I am greatly indebted to him for his help. Both his enthusiasm for this book and his generous offer to point out solecisms and anachronisms have been invaluable to me. My understanding of the eighteenth century I owe in part to his splendid books; my errors, of course, are my own. (I must also thank Dr. Phyllis Chesler for bringing us together.)
The other debts I must acknowledge are many. A novel like this could never have been written without the patience and forbearance of many librarians. I would like particularly to thank the following libraries and librarians: the Pequot Library in Southport, Connecticut (Stanley Crane, Grace Donaldson); the Weston, Connecticut Library (Jane Atkinson, Geraldine O’Connell); the Westport and Greenwich, Connecticut libraries; the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University (Donald Gallup and Marjorie Wynne); the South Street Seaport Library, New York City (Norman Brauer); the Columbia and Barnard libraries; Columbia University Law Library (Barbara Kessler was particularly helpful); and the Bridgeport, Connecticut University Library (Betty Meyer).
Burt Britton, first of the Strand bookstore, then later of Books & Co., searched for out-of-print titles for me. The late Ellen Moers, Elaine Showalter, and Scott Waugh gave encouragement and helpful suggestions about research. Russell Harty took me on a research trip to Bath, which was invaluable even though Bath did not finally appear in the novel. Captain Mike McCarthy and First Mate Sally Polk taught me a bit of sailing and showed me some pirate haunts of the Caribbean. Bardi McLennan, my secretary, scoured the libraries for books, paid overdue fines when I was ashamed to show my face, practically memorized the
Oxford English Dictionary
checking archaic word usage, and typed the manuscript more times than I can say. Jonathan Fast, my husband, read and encouraged every hundred pages or so and made suggestions so good I appropriated them as my own. He also encouraged me to attempt this departure from the contemporary scene and bolstered my faith when it lagged (which was often). Both he and Lula Johnson took excellent care of our daughter, Molly, during my working hours, giving me the peace of mind to write. And Molly herself helped by being the most amiable and unfretful of babies—born as she was between pages 284 and 285!
My editor, Elaine Koster, read and encouraged this project from the start. I am indebted to her for her suggestions for revision, for the care she took with reading and editing during what turned out to be the very last week of her pregnancy. (Quite a number of people involved with this book had babies during its composition!) Herbert K. Schnall of NAL gave his blessings and advice. Diana Levine and Joan Sanger lent their keen editorial assistance as well. I feel uniquely lucky to have such supportive publishers who so readily share my new enthusiasms and never ask me to repeat earlier books. My agent, Sterling Lord, as well as Pat Berens and Philippa Brophy at the Sterling Lord Agency, were my first readers and greatly helped by their enthusiasm as well as their criticism. Lori Henig and Martha Carpentier of Columbia University Graduate Faculties checked facts in the finished manuscript and made excellent suggestions. I am also grateful to Janice Thaddeus of Barnard College for recommending them. Sandee McComas, Natalie Corbin, and Lesley Nagot helped with the horrendous task of preparing the final copy. Bill Reynolds was the intrepid copy editor. Susan Battley assisted with reading proofs.