Lifespan: 1749-1806
Nationality: English
Genres: Romantic, Gothic, Sentimentality
Types of Work: Novels, poetry, children's literature
Contemporaries:
Style: Sentamental novels usually focus on a badly married wife helped by a lover; some novels are gothic in nature
Bio: Charlotte Turner was born into a wealthy family and received the typical education for a woman of her time period. The reckless spending habits of her father necessitated Charlotte's early marriage to the violent and licentious Benjamin Smith. The marriage was a miserable one for Charlotte, and the couple had 12 children.
Charlotte joined her husband in debtor's prison in the 1780's, where she wrote her first book of poetry, Elegiac Sonnets. She used the proceeds from its sell to pay for her husband's release.
Eventually, Charlotte left Benjamin Smith and used her writing to support herself and her children. She struggled to gain legal protection for herself and her work, and these frustrations provided themes for some of her work. A later novel, The Old Manor House, which is often considered her best, supports the idea of the French Revolution.
Charlotte published 10 novels, 3 books of poetry, and 4 children's books. She saw herself as a poetess first, and her poetry and prose was even praised by William Wordsworth, Walter Scott, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
She died in 1806, destitute.
Novels:
Emmeline; or The Orphan of the Castle (1788)
Ethelinde; or the Recluse of the Lake (1789)
Celestina (1791)
Desmond (1792)
The Old Manor House (1793)
The Wanderings of Warwick (1794)
The Banished Man (1794)
Montalbert (1795)
Marchmont (1796)
The Young Philosopher (1798)