Love and Madness is a 1780 English novel by Sir Herbert Croft . It was based on the 1779 murder of Martha Ray , the mistress of Lord Sandwich , by James Hackman . Its full title is Love and Madness, a Story too True: in a Series of Letters between Parties Whose Names Would Perhaps be Mentioned Were They Less Known or Lamented . The work proved very successful with many people initially believing that the fictional letters between the participants it contained were genuine. ^[1]

A large amount of the book was devoted to forgery , with two forgers James Macpherson and Thomas Chatterton , featuring prominently. The novel was apparently a major influence on William Henry Ireland , the author of the Shakespeare Forgeries , who used the subplot about forgery as an inspiration. ^[2] Ireland was himself reported to be an illegitimate son of Lord Sandwich by another mistress. ^[3]

Publication history [ edit ]

An amended edition of this novel appeared in the spring of 1780 by publisher George Kearsley ^[4] in a campaign to promote the novel.

Reception [ edit ]

The Morning Post initially received the letters well, and considered them instructive and inoffensive and painted a colourful picture of 'the dreadful consequences of the passion of love, unrestrained by virtue [...] which fill the mind at once both with horror and pity'. ^[5]

References [ edit ]

Bibliography [ edit ]

• Levy, Martin. Love and Madness: Murder of Martha Ray, Mistress of the Fourth Earl of Sandwich . Perennial, 2005.
• Pierce, Patricia. The Great Shakespeare Fraud: The Strange, True Story of William Henry-Ireland . Sutton Publishing, 2005.
• Brewer, John. Sentimental Murder : Love and Madness in the Eighteenth Century. London: Harper Perennial, 2005, p. 152. ISBN   0-00-655200-5 .
• London Evening Post. Cited in: Sentimental Murder : Love and Madness in the Eighteenth Century. London: Harper Perennial. p. 155.

External links [ edit ]

• Love and Madness at the Internet Archive
• Love and Madness at the Ex-Classics website. With notes and links to other resources. Can be read online or downloaded in various formats.

This article about a European novel is a stub . You can help Wikipedia by expanding it . See guidelines for writing about novels . Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page .

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This article about an 18th century novel is a stub . You can help Wikipedia by expanding it . See guidelines for writing about novels . Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page .

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