Bibliographer: Maya Kikuchi

The Sylph; a Novel

My experimental bibliography aims to capture aspects of the author's life that are relevant to the plot of the novel through the medium of poetry.

Traditional bibliographies do not capture any of the plot of the novel, including the content that directly relates to and explains the title, nor do they detail information about the author, which in the case of “The Sylph” is extremely relevant. “The Sylph” is an epistolary novel following a young woman, Julia Grenville, who leaves her country life to marry a rich aristocratic man, who she discovers to be a gambler and infidel. There are many other men in Julia’s life as well, including a mysterious guardian, the sylph.

Georgiana Cavendish, the author, shares many traits with her title character. She, like Julia, moved from country to city to marry a powerful aristocrat at a young age. Her husband also fell to gambling and infidelity. Most interestingly, Cavendish also suffered from a gambling addiction like the husband in her novel, who eventually commits suicide to escape his debt. Cavendish also left a large gambling debt upon her death, indicating that she identified with more than just the title character in her book.

In my experimental bibliography, I would like to highlight the aspects of the author's life that shaped the story in "The Sylph" through the medium of poetry. Specifically, I bring to light Cavendish’s marital problems, her husband’s infidelity and gambling, her expected duty to produce a male heir (and her subsequent miscarriages), and Cavendish’s own gambling and health problems. I convey aspects of Cavendish’s life relevant to the plot of her novel through an epistolary-inspired poem, taking from the form of the novel. I write from the imagined perspective of Cavendish reflecting on her life and writing and the parallels between the two.

Traditional Description

Devonshire, Georgiana Cavendish. The Sylph; a Novel. In Two Volumes. Vol. I. London: Printed for T. Lowndes, No. 77, Fleet-Street, 1779. 

Transcription:
THE|SYLPH;|A|NOVEL.|IN TWO VOLUMES.|"Ye Sylphs and Sylphids, to your chief give ear,|"Fays, Fairies, Genii, Elves, and Demons, hear!|"Ye know the spheres, and various tasks assign'd|"By laws eternal to th' aërial kind:|"Some in the fields of purest aether play,|"And bask, and whiten, in the blaze of day;|"Some guide the course of wand'ring orbs on high,|"Or roll the planets thro' the boundless sky:|"Our humbler province is to tend the Fair,|"Not a less pleasing, nor less glorious care."|POPE'S Rape of the Lock.|VOL. I.|[ornament]|LONDON:|PRINTED FOR T. LOWNDES,No.77,FLEET-STREET.|MDCCLXXIX.

Pagination:
Vol.1 258 pp. Vol.2 200 pp. 

Format:
Duodecimo 

Contents
Vol.1. A1r title, A2v blank, B1v-N3r text, N4v Just Published, N4r-N5v PLAYS printed for T. Lowndes, N5r Lately Published
Vol.2. A1r title, B1v-K4v text, K5r-L2v BOOKS printed for T. Lowndes, L2r-L3v PAMPHLETS printed for T. Lowndes, L3r-L5v PLAYS printed for T. Lowndes

Notes:
Sourced from Harvard University Houghton Library and accessed from Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO). Gale document number: CW114303565. Seal for Harvard College Library on A1v of Vol.I. Vol.1 ends with END OF VOL.1. and is followed by an advertisement for other books and plays printed for T. Lowndes. Vol.II ends with FINIS and is followed by an advertisement for other books, pamphlets, and plays printed for T. Lowndes. 

 

Experimental Description

The Duchess of Devonshire

Dear Mama,
I am seventeen today.
You always loved me best:
Love, your Dear little Gee
but today, Mama
I am your birthday girl
and his blushing bride,
he my duke and I his duchess.

Dear Father,
I am today wed to wealth,
power my procession
and veiled is his love.
You must be happy, Father:
Happily, your Dearest Georgiana
You mustn’t miss me all your days.

My darling husband,
You never show me your inner workings
or tend to mine. This heart cries out for touch.
You remain in mystery, my love, so
I’m writing to tell you I’ve written you
in my newest book, your novel debut
a character of similar intents and manners to your own.
The object of my heroine’s suffering.
She herself longs for someone,
a sylph only known in masquerade
and yet more known than you have ever been to me.
Yours newly drafted, Mrs. Cavendish

My darling libertine,
I long for someone anyone loving,
but the boy is unconceived
and I will not be freed from wedlock
while you roam free among a world of women,
but this is nothing new.
You chose mistresses and cards.
Here are mine laid on the table:
This miscarriage of my love is too much to bear
and I’ve tried for your child, your heir, to no release.
You hold me your hostage to his birth,
though I’ve mothered your flesh,
your blood, your illegitimacy,
and I’ve loved her as my own.
Sincerely, your most devoted Duchess

Dear Mama,
God save me from this man;
but this is not what I mean to write.
I need help, Mother dearest.
I think myself ill, yellowing,
dying in my debts
and on my knees before you.
But you don’t believe me; I have written you before.
You think me ill of excess,
symptomatic of money squandered.
If only I were saved by my dear, rich Duke!
But he must never know, Mother,
so here I ask you now for your grace
and a hundred pounds.
In prayers, your Dear little Gee

My Duke,
I’ve killed you with my words, or rather
I’ve written you to kill yourself.
I have finally chosen a title.
Who is The Sylph, you might ask?
He is everything unknown to me in you
and everything I know you are not.
He is my hope in a future
free from the bonds of a male birth,
from my debts,
from you.
And yet, here I remain
writing books of Julia’s, not Georgiana’s,
and letters which will never be sent,
my only consolation that you will never read these words.

-Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire