Memoirs of Emma Courtney

Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796) is a novel by English writer and feminist Mary Hays. Inspired by events from her own life, as well as by her acquaintance with radical political philosophers William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, Hays’s novel received mixed reviews and was controversial for its representation of female sexuality, adultery, infanticide, and suicide. Modern critics and readers, howe...