Belmour ─ A Modern Edition

With his new edition of The Sylph, Jonathan Gross recovered the work of novelist and biopic subject Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. With Belmour, Gross introduces the only novel of the English sculptress Anne Damer, another powerful eighteenth-century woman, to a modern audience.

Belmour chronicles the tangled romances of a group of eighteenth-century English aristocrats. The plot centers on charismatic Lord Belmour, a man of intense feeling and quick perception, who goes to great lengths to gain the affection of the lovely and mysterious Emily Melville, only to learn that she has recently married another man. His heartache propels him on an extensive journey across Europe, until fate ultimately leads their paths to cross once more. Set against vivid backdrops in Paris, Lisbon, Venice, and Rome, Belmour is a rich, multifaceted story of forbidden love and erotic intrigue that will appeal to those interested in the gothic romances of Ann Radcliffe and the psychological novels of Elizabeth Inchbald. Like her contemporary Jane Austen, Anne Damer casts a sharp and critical eye on the foibles of the aristocracy, yielding a memorable portrait of romantic love in the age of sensibility.

"How fortunate we are to have this new edition of Anne Damer's novel Belmour--a book as fascinating as the many-talented woman who wrote it. And how fortunate as well to have the book framed for us by Jonathan Gross's critical and biographical commentaries, where the cultural significance of Damer and her work is set forth so well. Damer is an artist, a writer, and a personality of real importance, now more lapsed from attention than she ever should have been."---Jerome McGann, University of Virginia

Anne Seymour Damer (1748--1828) was born in Kent to an aristocratic family. Her father's secretary, the philosopher David Hume, allegedly encouraged her to pursue a career as a sculptor at a time when few women did so. Among her best-known subjects are Lord Admiral Nelson and King George III. Giuseppe Ceracchi cast her as the Muse of Sculpture in a full-length statue that graced the entrance of the British Museum for more than one hundred years. Belmour (1801) was her only novel.
Jonathan David Gross is a professor of English at DePaul University and the director of the DePaul Humanities Center. He edited The Sylph (Northwestern, 2007) and Emma; or, The Unfortunate Attachment, both by Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. He is the editor of Byron's "Corbeau Blanc": The Life and Letters of Lady Melbourne and the author of Byron: The Erotic Liberal.