Laura Rigal, and Dorothea von Mücke also responded to various
issues in the manuscript and shared their own influential work
with me. Valuable comments about specific chapters were offered
by Nadine Bérenguier, Toni Bowers, Mary Jean Corbett, Frank
Donoghue, Kevin Dunn, Deidre Lynch, Julia Saville, Carol Saylor,
and Katie Trumpener. Much to its benefit, my first chapter received
the exacting and exhilarating scrutiny of the Yale English Depart-
ment's Works-in-Progress group, for which I thank its members.

For her influence and encouragement at early stages of my
writing and for her own exemplary work, I am grateful to Terry
Castle. John Bender, W. B. Carnochan, and David E. Wellbery not
only enriched my understanding of the eighteenth century but also
offered crucial insights about the project as it developed.

The beginnings of my writing and research were generously
supported by the Comparative Literature Department of Stan-
ford University, the Stanford Humanities Center, and the Whiting
Foundation. I am grateful to Yale University for a Morse Fellowship
in 1993-94, and to the A. Whitney Griswold Fund for assistance
in preparing the manuscript for publication. Ron Davies, Carrie
Roider, and Jane Marianna Tolmie provided invaluable assistance
with this process.

An earlier version of Chapter 2 appeared as "The Limping
Woman and the Public Sphere" in Veronica Kelly and Dorothea E. von Mücke
, eds., Body and Text in the Eighteenth Century ( Stan-
ford University Press, 1994). An earlier version of Chapter 4 was
published as "Going Public: The Letter and the Contract in Fanni
Butlerd," Eighteenth-Century Studies 24, 1 ( 1990): 21-45.

Finally, I thank my parents, who first encouraged me to love
letters. This book is dedicated to them and to Jon Cook, best be-
loved correspondent.

E. H. C.

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