Bother. I was so hoping that this would prove to be a happy discovery. Instead it was repetitive and dull. This is probably due to the difference in publication process. Getting one chapter a week would spread the silliness thinly. But getting it all at once give you cotton candy. ( )

I can't be the only person who didn't see this book as anti-novel reading! This is one of my favorite books ever and to me it makes a point about the lack of female education at the time (Hey, even the value we place on female education now!) and the way that women were often kept totally separate from 'real life'. Like children being moved from one parent to another (father to husband). Of course, since Arabella knows nothing of the world, and her father is not the involved parent of the year, she's going to latch onto the thing that gives her the most pleasure and a look into romantic relationships and adventure.

It is hilarious how she gets so many things wrong, but it's even more interesting that she has the strength of personality to get people to go along with her. They might think she's loony but even her suitors start to learn to read her gestures and play along with how she wants her life to be. The end is pretty disappointing, but until then, Arabella does shape at least part of her own world, like the queens in the books she loves. It's pretty fantastic, really.

I love seeing the influences this book must have had on Northanger Abbey (I can't imagine it didn't) and even Emma, a bit, as well as some influence on the up and coming gothic genre. I'd give this book more stars if I could. ( )

For its time, this is a pretty readable and engaging bit of writing that isn’t overlong and makes clever use of wry humour as it takes a dig at romance novels and their effect on particularly feminine fantasies. It’s kind of like an 18th century version of Cold Comfort Farm.

Arabella is the protagonist who falls under the spell of the masses of romantic literature she plunders from her father’s library. In this, Lennox was parodying the spell that Don Quixote falls under from books of chivalry that turn his brain.

For me, the ludicrous situations that Arabella ends up in as a result of her delusions were as humorous as that of the Don. Through this, Lennox is also able to comment on the influence of literature, just as Cervantes was able to comment on the social mores of his day.

For this, Lennox deserves (and received at the time) great credit, particularly as the 18th century wasn’t the easiest period of literary history for a woman to get herself published.

The plot is well complicated by the fact that, on his deathbed, Arabella’s father insists that the only way to come into her full inheritance is to marry her stable, well balanced and affectionate cousin Glanville. However, his normality is a far cry from her fantasies and this provides for many of the crises throughout the novel.

It all ends reasonably enough though with Arabella regaining her senses and predictably marrying her suitor, but it’s a fairly engaging ride along the way. ( )

The plot is well summarized in other reviews here. I would add that overall this was entertaining, though the pacing was a bit odd. There was a section in book two with interminable examples of what the French heroines would do and the ending conversion was too quick, but for pure enjoyment, in some ways this was better than Don Quixote because fewer people got hurt and the bathroom humor was absent. Its overall quality and scope does not match Don Quixote, as its intent was smaller. The best part of the book happened in Arabella's seclusion in the country.

As a whole this was fairly simple book, but for a novel from the 1700's I was impressed. It comments that there is a distinction between absurd novels and good fiction. The modern challenge then is for an individual reader to find the "good" fiction, and we have quite a bit more to sort through than Arabella did! An additional truth applicable to modern life is that one cannot disappear from the world, it continually intrudes. I would recommend this book to those who enjoyed Don Quixote or have an interest in the phenomenon of reclusiveness / separation from community life. ( )

This novel was written in the 1750s and is a satire of Don Quixote. The main character, Arabella, is a beautiful, charming, wealthy woman who unfortunately grows up very isolated and therefore reads too many French historical romances about ancient Greece and Rome which she believes in completely. This leads to many humorous situations as she is courted by her cousin who her father intends for her to marry. I really enjoyed the first third of the book, but after a while the humor started to be the same over and over and got a little old. All the men in the book think she's crazy but don't care because she's beautiful and wealthy. I think this is worth reading, especially as an example of women writing in the 1700s. It's genuinely funny and entertaining. It was also obviously an example to Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, a book I love. ( )