BOOK NOTES by Joan Ruddiman: In the style of soap operas, we could begin, "When last seen, Gilbert Imlay was hightailing it to Europe to evade authorities angered over his shady land dealings."
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In the style of soap operas, we could begin, "When last seen, Gilbert Imlay was hightailing it to Europe to evade authorities angered over his shady land dealings."
Imlay’s life reads like a soap opera. He comes across in the Imlay family memoirs as a black sheep of the family. He shows up in John Mack Faragher’s notable biography on Daniel Boone as the "smooth-talking emigrant, lately retired from the officer corps of the New Jersey Line, who appeared in Limestone during the late winter of 1783" who swindled Boone in a land deal.
However, it is his adventures in Europe that have sealed his fame, or infamy, in a soap opera of historic proportions.
When Imlay was in France during their Revolution, he met and carried on a passionate affair with Mary Wollstonecraft. They had a child, called Fanny Imlay, though Mary and Gilbert never married.
Imlay, even with his adventures on two continents, and the author of a couple of books on the American frontier, may have been just a footnote in history except for Wollstonecraft. She was the mother of Mary Shelley, author of "Frankenstein," and second wife of the poet Percy Shelley (now there’s a soap opera!).
Wollstonecraft was an author in her own right, in particular "A Vindication of the Rights of Women" and "A Vindication of the Rights of Men." After her death, from complications after giving birth to Mary, her husband William Godwin, a radical social activist, wrote a book titled "Memoirs" that celebrated the life she lived as a liberated woman. However, his mention of the illegitimate child Fanny threw critics of those times into a tizzy and she was branded as a wanton woman.
Wollstonecraft has come into her own centuries after her death, in part as feminists have purposed to restore her reputation as a liberated woman rather than a scorned woman left destitute by her man. She is also studied by historians examining her era through the lens of gender studies.
Anyone who looks at Wollstonecraft also discovers Gilbert Imlay and that leads them to the Allentown Public Library’s Van Kirk New Jersey Historical Collection.
Our most recent visitor was Lyndall Gordon, Ph.D., author, and senior research fellow at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford, where she now teaches part-time as she pursues the full-time demands of writing.
Gordon is known for her studies of literary personalities who tend to be on the fringes of their societies. Her first book, from her Columbia dissertation work, is titled "T.S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life." Citing lessons learned from her dissertation advisor, Gordon expresses her philosophy of her work. "You have to be prepared for criticism," but research thoroughly, be sure of what you understand, and write it.
Essentially, new research, well done, shifts the paradigm. Indeed, Gordon’s book re-framed assumptions about Eliot and her interpretations are now what scholars accept.
Her books include, "Virginia Woolf: A Writer’s Life," "Charlotte Bronte: A Passionate Life," and the examination of one aspect of Henry James’s life titled "A Private Life of Henry James: Two Women and His Art. (In an aside, Gordon notes that this was not her title, but the publisher’s idea, and "I do regret it it is much too long.")
Gordon also wrote what she describes as a "not scholarly" but "more inventive" book titled "Shared Lives" about three of her friends from her days growing up in South Africa. (It is on order; you will hear more.)
Now Gordon has turned her scholarly sights to Wollstonecraft AND Imlay. Rather than seeing Imlay as the sidebar to the Wollstonecraft story, Gordon is exploring the deeper significance of the relationship in how it influenced Wollstonecraft’s thinking.
And that is all I will say on that for now. However, when her book comes out, it will be reviewed here.
At the moment, the continuing Imlay saga is what captures our attention. He is remembered as such a cad. He cheated Daniel Boone! He abandoned his paramour and his child in a city ravaged by war!
"I am not saying I carry a torch for him," Gordon says in her delightful British style, in regards to Imlay, "but I must keep an open mind."
As a shrewd observer of people, and a savvy researcher, Gordon realizes that history is often colored by biased perceptions. She cites as an example the perceptions of the heralded English poet, William Wordsworth who "is held in such high esteem." He also was in Paris, in 1791 during the French Revolution.
He also had a passionate affair, with a French woman named Annette Vallon. However, he returned (scurried?) back to the safety of England before the child was born his daughter, Caroline. Only after years of living with his sister (under the care of his sister?), when he was preparing to marry in 1802 did he make "an amiable settlement" with Annette as "The Norton Anthology of English Literature" puts it.
Gordon relates only the facts in telling Wordsworth’s story, as do literary biographical clips, as found in "Norton’s." But read, as suggested here by me, between the lines. The story can be interpreted that Wordsworth’s behavior was less than admirable.
Gordon uses Wordsworth’s story "merely to contrast Imlay’s reputation as a cad for abandoning Wollstonecraft with Wordsworth who’s seen as ‘sensible’ for leaving Annette Vallon when he did." Gordon reflects that "Imlay’s sins were not as egregious as these," referring to Wordsworth’s abandonment of Annette as she was due to deliver her child.
Yet Imlay is recalled as a cad, whereas Wordsworth is a literary hero, and seemingly above reproach. This contrast underscores an essential role of the researcher to filter out bias and preconceptions.
So the search of Gilbert Imlay continues. Was he a cad? Was he a clever entrepreneur caught in the instability of his times? Did circumstances, not insensitivity, separate him from Wollstonecraft?
Lyndall Gordon is on the case. She says, "Each day I find a new detail and my vision shifts." Publication date for her book on Wollstonecraft and Imlay is set for 2003. Gilbert Imlay’s fame/infamy has yet to be determined, but anyone in search of Gilbert Imlay should withhold judgment until Gordon’s evidence is in.
Next week, the story of (another!) little library with a great big collection the David Library of the American Revolution.
Joan Ruddiman is a teacher and a friend of the Allentown Public Library.

