The London Jilt ed. by Charles H. Hinnant

77 Despite her prose, her text is worth reading for its fine insights. Michael Caldwell University of California, San Diego The London Jilt, ed. Charles H. Hinnant . Claremont, Canada: Broadview, 2008. Pp. 221. $19.95 (paper). The London Jilt (1683) is a lively text, important as a precursor to later famous scandalous memoirs, and useful as an engaging libertine-era novel. In a first-person narrative, a strikingly independent Cornelia recounts her varied adventures as a whore. The novel warns (male) readers against patronizing prostitutes : ‘‘[W]hat greater Folly can there be than to venture one’s All in such rotten Bottoms,’’ for a prostitute is ‘‘like a Barber’s chair, no sooner one’s out, but t’other’s in.’’ After the early death of Cornelia’s father , her mother supports herself and her daughter by prostitution, or ‘‘play[ing] with her Buttocks.’’ Thus, Cornelia is raised to believe that there is no shame in ‘‘persons who make their profit upon that part of the Body. . . . For the fist and the Tail are made of one and the same Flesh, and Sweating is as easily got by that, as by the most laborious Trade that is exercised.’’ Cornelia’s mother is her first procuress , repeatedly selling Cornelia’s virginity . Cornelia soon becomes the kept mistress of a wealthy man, whom she cuckolds with five lover-clients. After her keeper’s death, Cornelia obtains her own house in which to entertain her ‘‘Gallants.’’ During this first part of the novel, she engages in sex solely to make money, and she gleefully recounts her many strategies for extracting more from her clients. At the same time, she appears to enjoy sexual activity; for example , she claims that losing her virginity brought her ‘‘extraordinary Pleasure .’’ Still, although she says that ‘‘the Flesh has been some times stronger than the Spirit,’’ she seems to be more strongly motivated by greed than lust. Early on, she brags that ‘‘not a Man received the least Testimony of Affection from me, unless I was assured I should be paid for it with ready Money.’’ One of the few exceptions is her lusty bedding and then wedding of a rich, young tobacco merchant. The marriage quickly sours, as the husband becomes first parsimonious and then physically abusive. For revenge, Cornelia begins to frequent ‘‘a Bawdy-House of Citizens Wives’’ planning to ‘‘heap up a Sum of Money . . . by the Labour of my Body.’’ In the second half of the book, sexuality is used to manipulate or cheat one’s partners, and there is both slapstick and excremental comedy. At the end of the narrative, when her aging physique has diminished her earning power, Cornelia retires from prostitution . She opens a lace shop and acts as a madame to ‘‘a Miss’’ who lodges with her. A serious illness eventually causes Cornelia to vow to ‘‘lead a better Life,’’ which ends her career as a procuress. In spite of this sick-bed conversion, Cornelia is never fully repentant, making it clear that she is not one of those who ‘‘after having led a vicious Life during their Youth’’ become self-righteous converts in old age. At the end, her primary reason for chastity is that ‘‘no Body now comes to torment me any more for such Like things.’’ Mr. Hinnant’s well-written and extensive Introduction convincingly delineates the ways in which The London Jilt is a pattern for later novels such as Moll Flanders and Roxana. Curiously, at two 78 points in the Introduction he misrepresents the novel’s plot: first, Mr. Hinnant tells us that Cornelia is beaten after exceeding her household allowance, when she is actually punished for stealing from the tobacco shop; and second, he writes that Cornelia opens a shop in Flanders when, in fact, she goes to Flanders to purchase merchandise, but returns to open a shop in ‘‘my House’’ which is in ‘‘the City’’ or ‘‘the Town’’ of London. Undergraduates will find the book’s elementary footnotes and appendices of primary source material (excerpts from Don Quixote, The English Rogue, The Whore’s Rhetorick, and contemporary conduct literature) useful. Katharine Kittredge Ithaca College CHRISTINE MASON SUTHERLAND. The Eloquence of Mary Astell. Calgary...

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