Selections from the Female Spectator

After Aphra Behn, Eliza Haywood was the most important woman novelist of the early eighteenth century. In the 1740s and 50s Haywood also edited several serial newspapers, the most important being The Female Spectator which appeared every month from April 1744 to May 1746 and was written with a markedly female audience in mind. The first modern periodical both written by a woman and addressed to a female audience, The Female Spectator takes up exciting themes found in Haywood's short fiction.