The Novel
The Novel
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![[Mary Hearne =] M. H., The Lover's Week: or, the Six Days Adventures of Philander and Amaryllis (London: E. Curll/ R. Francklin, 1718).](../images/books/e-1718-0014.gif)
THE| LOVER'S| WEEK:| OR, THE| Six Days Adventures| OF| Philander and Amaryllis.| [rule]| Written by a Young LADY.| [rule]| The Cause of Love can never be assign'd;| 'Tis in no Face, but in the Lover's Mind.| Dryden.| [double rule]| LONDON:| Printed for E. CURLL at the Dial and Bible,| and R. FRANCKLIN at the Sun, both over-|against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street.| M.DCC.XVIII.| Price One Shilling.
p.[i] titlepage/ p.[iii-v] dedication: Mrs. Manley; dated: 29 May 1718; signed: M[ary]. H[earne]./ p.[vi-viii] Poem "To the Fair and Ingenious Author of the Lover's Week"; signed: Joseph Gay [i.e. Breval, John Durant 1680-1738]/ p.1-56 Text, dated: 23 April 1718/ 4°.
{L: Cup.403.l.38} {NA:ICN: Case.Y.1565.H356}.
W. H. McBurney (1960), p.33: 90. ESTC: t126577.
M.H. = Mary Hearne see Honour, the Victory; and Love, the Prize. Illustrated in Ten Novels by Mrs. Hearne (London: E. Curll, 1720).
Amaryllis relationg to her friend, Emilia, the incidents of the six days she spent with Philander: In a painter's shop they accidentally met, Philander got her address through the shop manager and wrote her. She gave his declaration of love a positive answer, and accepted a private invitation to his house. On the occassion she did not note how the hours passed. Ultimately it was so late that she could only return home without risking unpleasant questions. Philander persuaded her to stay over night, she took a bath and went to bed in where she did not remain undisturbed. As she loved him, however, and as she believed his love to be sincere, also as she did not want to hurt his feelings she did not reject his approaches. Instead of making her way home the very next day she decided to leave with Philander for the country to enjoy their union there even without marriage. The letter with the deatiled report ends with Amaryllis asking the friend to intervene on her behalf at her aunt to make a return to home possible.
The simple story becomes fascinating with the game it plays on the reader's expectations. Philander immediately reminds us of Aphra Behn's hero from Love-Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister (1684) - Behn depicted Sylvia, risking an illicit affair with her Philander and rejecting all moral standards opposing it. Amaryllis actually detects p.17-18 an edition of Behn's Novels (1696) on Philanders table, the book being obviously his present reading (both Behn's works were on the market in brand new editions in 1718). The constellation of the Lover's Week reminds of Jane Barker's, Bosvil and Galesia (1713) where we had Galesia asking her friend what she could have done to arrange the union with Bosvil. Galesia had rejected his approaches when she should have considered with him how they could persuade their parents to arrange the marriage. Amaryllis was more courageous and more ambivalent about all dangers: she simply did what many of Delarivier Manley heroines did in the first two volumens of the New Atalantis (1709). It is hence no coincident that the whole book is dedicated to Mrs. Manley, the author who brought love stories to greatest intensity. Things would be clear and inevitable in Manley's world: the heroine would be seduced and then dropped by her lover only to end in shame and ignomy. Where Manley castigated her heroine's readines to comply with their seducers, Joseph Gay, opens The Lover's Week with a poem defended Amaryllis for the "generosity" with which she valued her love higher than all apprehensions. A fascinationg, taboos breaking attempt.
On Joseph Gay cf. "Breval, John Durant" in: Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 6 (London, 1886), p.289-90.
Spencer, Jane, The Rise of Woman Novelists. From Aphra Behn to Jane Austen (Oxford, 1986), p.61.
Simons, Olaf, Marteaus Europa oder Der Roman, bevor er Literatur wurde (Amsterdam/ Atalanta, 2001), p.200-207/ p.382-385.
o.s.
The Lover's Week: or, The Six Days Adventures of Philander and Amaryllis (London: E. Curll/ R. Francklin, 1718). [Reprint: (New York: Garland, 1973).]