The Coquette

Hannah Webster Foster (1758-1840) was an American novelist who published her best-selling novel, "The Coquette", anonymously in 1797. It wasn't until 1866, after multiple reprints of the novel, and 26 years after the author's death, that her name appeared on the work. The novel is a fictionalized account of a Connecticut socialite named Eliza Wharton, whose death nine years prior had been highly publicized. Wharton was a 37 yr-old woman who died at a roadside tavern giving birth to a stillborn, …