"Contexts and Contemporary Reactions" illuminates eighteenth-century culture with selections from conduct books for women. Extracts from Burney's letters and journals and five contemporary reviews are also included.

"Criticism" presents a superb selection of critical writing about the novel.

The critics include Anna Letitia Barbauld, William Hazlitt, John Wilson Croker, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Virginia Woolf, Joyce Hemlow, Martha G. Brown, Kenneth W. Graham, Kristina Straub, Gina Campbell, Susan Fraiman, amd Margaret Anne Doody.

A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are included.