Top 5 Quotes & Sayings by Charlotte Smith

Charlotte Smith, an English novelist and poet of the Romantic period, prompted a revival of the English sonnet, helped to set conventions for Gothic fiction and wrote political novels of sensibility. Despite ten novels, four children's books and other works, she saw herself mainly as a poet, expecting to be remembered for her Elegiac Sonnets. She is credited with turning the sonnet into an expression of woeful sentiment. She left her husband and began writing to support their children. Her struggles for legal independence as a woman affect her poetry, novels and autobiographical prefaces. Her early novels show development in sentimentality. Later ones such as Desmond and The Old Manor House praised the ideals of the French Revolution. Waning interest left her destitute by 1803. Barely able to hold a pen, she sold her book collection to pay debts and died in 1806. Largely forgotten by the mid-19th century, she has since been seen as a major Romantic writer.